Aisling
by Rover09
Summary: Dreams, reality, and the doors between. Story by Tang Guangzhen.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the characters and I don't own this story.

**_LOUD AND CLEAR! I DO NOT, HAVE NOT AND WILL NOT EVER OWN THIS STORY!_**

**This story is the property of Tang Guangzhen who was kind enough to give me permission to post this here. Any flames about that will be used to fry your ass.**

**Thank You**

* * *

He was…waking up? Waking up? He'd just gotten to sleep, damn it.

"It's all right. You're not waking up. And you didn't just fall asleep, actually; you simply haven't dreamed yet."

He could feel grass against his arm, rustling under the rest of him. His head and shoulders were resting on something warm, and textured like an afghan.

"Don't worry. If you aren't happy with the situation, I'll--how shall I phrase it--return you to your regularly scheduled dream. Though frankly, if I were you, I'd be avoiding that possibility like the black death. I had to bump something very unpleasant aside."

Harry's eyes blinked open. "Bob?"

"Hello." Bob sounded like he was smiling, but Harry couldn't see, because the "afghan" he was resting against was Bob in an Aran-knit sweater.

"Bob? What the…"

"It's all right, Harry, nobody's kidnapped you. You're asleep, and this is a dream. Well, except for me. I'm feeding your subconscious a few suggestions."

Harry pushed himself up; he found that the lethargy that had sent him to bed had gone. Bob was looking placidly at him, leaning against a tree, his hands now clasped over one knee; besides the sweater, he was wearing grey riding pants and black, English-style riding boots. Harry glanced down; he was wearing a sweater much like Bob's, but with jeans and his usual boots.

"Nice outfit," he muttered dazedly.

"I compromised. I didn't think you'd much like what you'd be wearing if I dressed you in the fashions current in Ireland the last time I was actually there in life."

"No, I probably…wouldn't have…" Harry was busy looking around. "Okay, so what the hell are you doing again? How are you…how are you doing this?"

"I'd thought of it before, but I doubted it would work. As it is…" a breeze caressed the top of the hill they were on, making the leaves of the yew tree whose trunk Bob was resting against susurrate. Bob braced a hand on the trunk and stood, idly brushing grass from his clothes as he spoke. "…it's only working because you're a wizard, and because you…trust me."

"Um…I get why the wizard part would make a difference--my brain and my mind are trained to accept ideas and processes most people's aren't--"

"I was referring to your natural gift, but that's probably part of it, too. If you didn't have the ability to organize and restructure, to order reality in your mind to suit your specifications, this would be impossible. However, usually, a wizard would trust no one enough to allow this to happen; your subconscious would have denied me entrance, just as it would have denied entrance to another living wizard. I'd've been tossed out on my ectoplasmic bum." Bob laughed briefly, softly. "I wouldn't have tried it if I expected consequences more malevolent than that, because I didn't expect it to work. I'm rather shocked, actually." He didn't sound entirely pleased, either; not disturbed, but speculative.

"You can probably only do this with another wizard, but another wizard…"

"Almost universally, another wizard would not have permitted it."

This was a nice dream. It seemed entirely real, completely sensory. He was in a beautiful place, feeling like he might be on some kind of trank or something--because nothing was truly bothering him, and nothing was even sore, which for him was quite a rarity.

And he could touch Bob, which was downright eerie. He lifted a hand and set it on Bob's shoulder, then stood there staring at it. Bob was just barely smiling at him; the expression on his face was almost doting. What am I, a puppy? Harry wondered, and then remembered that as far as age went, at least, he didn't even rate puppy, next to Bob. "…what exactly...and why?" He lifted the other hand and set that one on Bob's opposite shoulder, and squeezed both shoulders lightly, blinking slowly.

"To answer your first question, this is your dream. I can't dream, since sleep is something living brains do as part of their maintenance; but I can join you here. I waited until you entered the dream state on your own; there are a certain number of hours each night that humans dream as a part of a healthy sleep, and so long as I don't cause your dreaming time to trespass on any of the time you should be spending at other levels, this will do you no harm. But I'm…here, this is me. I'm not part of…what shall I call it…the dreamscape. Though I suppose I'm part of the aisling."

"How?"

"I wish I could be more precise; but a mind without a brain is capable of certain things that a mind generated by a brain is not. I'm controlling what you dream, but the dream is yours. I'll stop, if you like--"

"No," Harry said, shaking his head; he smiled a little, looking around again, still holding Bob's shoulders like Bob might run away if Harry let go. "This is a lot better than the stuff I usually dream. And it's coherent, and everything."

"Just remember that you can ask me to take my leave at any time."

"I'm not asking you to, all right?"

"It doesn't…disturb you, in some fashion, at least, that I'm…inside your mind, in a way?"

"Are you mostly right here?"

"Mostly."

"What's the rest of you doing?"

"Monitoring you, in case your sleep should become agitated, or you should enter an inappropriate sleep state. I'm also taking the occasional quick look around the apartment. I'm afraid I don't entirely trust our wards any more."

"I feel so violated," Harry said, rolling his eyes and leaning sarcastically against every other syllable. He let go of Bob's shoulders, resting his hands on his hips.

"Many would. Or threatened."

Harry shook his head, his expression indulgent. "Yeah, of course, usually--but come on, Bob. It's you. It's you, it's me. It's--okay--you're okay, right? 'Cause I'm okay. Really. Okay."

Bob didn't laugh. He just tilted his head and studied Harry a moment, then said quietly "Though I honestly didn't expect it…I'd still hoped--very much--that you'd feel that way about it." He lifted his hands to take Harry's, and held them loosely.

"Yeah, okay. So…um…wow," Harry said, laughing a little, squeezing Bob's fingers. "This is…it's…wow." He laughed again and pulled Bob into a tight hug. "And you can feel it? You've got all your senses?"

"More properly, at the moment, three of them are yours. Well--properly, at the moment, they're all yours, I'm--" Harry shook him slightly, making a growling sound, and Bob laughed. "Short answer--yes. I can sense everything you can."

"That's great, Bob, that's fantastic--you've finally stuck it to those overzealous guardians of the public morality that planted you in your skull. You can have--what'd you say? At least a few hours out of every day, at least, when you can--this is great!"

"It wasn't that simple, and you know it. Harry, listen--we'll have to be careful, not mention this to anyone. I don't want you to come under any sort of sweeping judgment yourself for interfering in mine. My transgressions were very great; but you don't deserve to have to pay for them simply because you trusted me enough to let me in, or because you're kindhearted enough to let me stay."

"Bob, you don't deserve to have to pay for them in perpetuity, until your skull finally rots to nothing!"  
"It may be too late for that. I'm not sure what that carven thing is, any more, though at the moment I have an odd attachment to it besides the obvious one--"

"That's probably mine."

"Ah. Of course. In any event, however I may feel about my sentence and its propriety--" Bob backed up enough to look at him without going cross-eyed, "--and, more to the point, however you may feel about it--that's the price that any people must pay, who choose a rule of law for their own protection. If one sets up sanctions, one risks their being invoked against one, if unforeseen circumstances occur and one comes at odds with the same rules one helped to instigate."

"C'mon, Bob, I know what happened, and they clobbered you. You didn't get an appeal. You didn't even get to defend yourself. Unlike my uncle, you did do…what you did, for love. Summary justice isn't justice."

"Perhaps so. And perhaps I could have complained at the way the law worked before I found myself in the position of disobeying it, for what I saw as good reason; but I didn't. No one is likely to listen to the opinion of the already-convicted when it comes to issues like the impartiality of the law, or degree of punitive severity. And now I want you to drop the subject; this argument--yet again--is not how I want to remember the first time I ever touched you, even if it's a dream."

"You're right, you're right, you're right, sorry…" Harry leaned in and pulled Bob close again. "This is cool. This is so cool. Why haven't you ever tried it before?"

"When you were very young--it might have worked, but I was trying to teach you to be careful, to keep yourself defended. Asking you to let me into your mind wouldn't have brought that lesson home well. It wasn't something I wanted you to get used to; I had to teach you--for your own safety--to trust only to a certain point even those you loved. Later, I assumed it would be pointless; you are a very good wizard, and I know of no powerful magic workers who do not guard themselves and their power very jealously."

"I get you. We're a pretty assholish bunch, taken as a group. But tonight was different…why?"

"Earlier today, when I was about to leave, to enter the…darkness, I was distracted, but it was obvious even to me how much you were suffering for lack of the ability to touch me. You were frustrated almost past bearing. And afterward, when I returned..."

"Hell, I couldn't--I couldn't even…well, you know. When you came back, and you looked like all hell--"

"An apt description, under the circumstances. I was in quite a state, but I did notice your hands. You kept holding them out to me, or near me, as though you could protect me, hold me up if I were weak, like a living man." Bob smiled a little. "And a few minutes ago, I was watching you sleep, and thought of it--and wished there had been some way--and I wondered."

"So you thought, 'what the fuck, I'll give it a shot; if he doesn't like it he'll spin me out his subconscious's revolving door'."

"Something like that." Bob smiled again. "Less profanity was involved."

"Yeah." Henry grinned. "I'm glad you tried it."

"Believe me, I am as well."

His cheek resting against the soft firmness of Bob's sweater-covered shoulder, Harry squinted into the distance. "Is that the ocean?"

"Yes. Would you like to see it from closer on?"

Suddenly the rise of land they were standing on, yew tree and all, was a short cliff face overlooking deafeningly crashing breakers. Harry squeezed in startlement; Bob made a grfing noise as the wind whooshed out of him, and patted Harry. "Sorry. I suppose that was a little abrupt," he said, loud enough to be heard over the ocean.

Harry shaded his eyes, looking down, then up and around, the other arm still around Bob to help him keep his footing. "This is amazing. But warn me next time!"

"Of course. My apologies."

"That a beach down there? Don't zap us there, let's just walk it."

"Of course."

The beach was deep; they walked up to where the cove wall rose from the sand and the view across the beach and the water was unobstructed. Harry could very nearly hear himself think here.

"Surf's sure up."

"It'll be calmer after sunset." The sun shone horizontally into the cove, hovering just above the sea. "Or I could make it calmer now, if you like."

"No, I wanna see it the way you remember it. Where in Ireland are we?"

"In what's now Donegal, along the northwest coast."

"I didn't know Ireland had white sand beaches--and up the cliffs and around, it's so green…if you ignore how cold it is we could be in Hawaii."

"That's the crucial point, yes. Even now, the beaches are never crowded, because the water is cold enough to induce hypothermia in only a few moments."

"Ouch."

"Are you cold? I can--"

"Not very. C'mere." Harry sat on a bark-stripped log, straddling it, then reached up and latched onto Bob's arm, pulling him over. "Here, get--yeah, in front of me." The log sloped downward toward the water; Bob straddled the log too, his back to Harry. With Bob ensconced in front of Harry and Harry's arms around him, Harry could see over his shoulder easily. "There. People with living bodies can keep each other warm."

"I do recall that," Bob chuckled.

"Did you spend a lot of time in Ireland when you were alive?"

"It wasn't a second home, but I was here fairly regularly."

"What brought you here? I mean, yeah, it's beautiful, but so was England, when you were alive. Where's Bainbridge, anyway?"

"North Yorkshire. As for Ireland, I was here researching druidical magic. Ireland, never having been occupied by Rome, maintained stronger traditions, even after the advent of Christianity. It's also wrapped in ley lines like a ball of string."

"Yeah, I remember somebody making me memorize a bunch of crap about that."

"'A bunch of crap'? Honestly. It's a wonder you ever became a wizard at all." Bob sniffed.

"I remember…the Romans were hell on the English druids, because they were secular authority figures as well as religious ones."

"Indeed. The Romans were notoriously tolerant of local religions. So long as Roman law was obeyed and Roman rule acknowledged, and taxes and tithes arrived on time, Roman acquisitions were largely allowed to worship whoever they liked, in whatever manner they preferred…unless their gods or their priesthood interfered in secular, civil obedience to Rome, as with the Druids. It wouldn't hurt you to make a trip to Ireland, Harry."

"People might wonder why I'm carrying a carven skull around."

"People in Chicago would wonder at it, for that matter, if you turned it into a bloody keychain fob. You can carry my skull in a satchel, like you always do. Of course, airport security might be a tad disapproving."

"You can't hijack a plane by waving a skull at the pilot, so all I'd get would be weird looks; you've obviously been dead a very long time--that skull couldn't hurt anybody except by tripping them. There's nothing illegal about owning a human skull, so long as you didn't swipe it or kill the original owner to get it…okay, there'd be serious paperwork, if I couldn't dodge it, but it's easy to fool an x-ray scanner. When did this conversation get so morbid?"

"Conversations with the dead tend to the morbid side."

"You don't feel dead right now." Harry squeezed gently around Bob's ribs. "I can even feel your heartbeat," he wondered softly. "It's incredible. You're alive."

"No, I'm not," Bob said gently. "But at the moment--I feel alive to myself, as well; thanks to you--to your life, your sharing it with me."

"Me? I'm not doing this."

"You're allowing me to. I couldn't, unless you were willing to let me. It's…it's a very great gift, Harry, far greater than you can imagine. Thank you."

"Bob…" Harry pressed his lips together, searching for words, and squeezed around Bob's middle again, resting his forehead on Bob's shoulder. "It's the least I can do. You gave up your own senses, went back to the…purgatory they've put you in, to wipe out my uncle and save my life. I know--it was all part of the plan. But it took a while to execute the plan, and I know how second thoughts can occur--I mean, after you actually had a mortal body, you were alive again--you could have been ten times as powerful a sorcerer as you ever were, with everything you've learned--and you gave it up--"

"Harry. Shh." Bob reached up and settled one hand in Harry's hair, his fingers moving soothingly in it. "Don't feel beholden for it, though telling you that is a waste of breath, I realize…but honestly, it was never so close a thing as you seem to think. My remaining alive would have been at the price of your death, and that was so far beyond what I was willing to endure to live again that I never truly considered it. My brief 'life', the one I had thanks to Justin's double, was…an aberration, a short fever dream in my usual existence."

"I dunno. I can imagine--"

"But I can't. I don't think you understand…well. I suppose I've never made it all that clear…"

"Made what all that clear?"

Bob sighed, sounding and feeling completely corporeal to Harry. "Being alive, and any ramifications thereof, weren't remotely enough to change my feeling for you one iota. It was never in my mind that I would remain alive, because I loved you too much for the necessary price…even to occur to me, let alone to be willing to pay it. When it did occur to me, it seemed like a joke--something ridiculously out of the realm of possibility."

Harry inhaled, and felt frozen for a moment, then exhaled in a rush. "Well shit, Bob."

"Ah, yes. Your sophisticated grasp of multiple ramifications comes to the fore."

Harry heard himself giggling into the nape of Bob's neck and fought for control. "What the hell do I say to…that?"

"Since you've already said 'thank you for giving up your life to save me and blow my thrice-damned uncle out of this plane of existence', I don't see the need to say anything at all," Bob told him comfortingly, patting his arm.

Harry began giggling again, more quietly this time. "Uh…can I say I love you, too?"

"You don't have to." Bob said softly. Harry knew by his tone that he was smiling.

"Maybe I want to," Harry said, smiling too.

"Say what you like, then. This is your dream."

"Yeah." Harry sighed. "Actually, I guess I've loved you for a long time."

"And I you."

"I don't think I ever loved my uncle. Admired him, and like that. He was…this figure, you know, this guy so far out of my orbit…I thought he must really be the shit, and I was grateful to him, taking me in, seeing I learned…but you were right there. This may sound weird, considering, but you were a lot realer to me than he was. You told great stories. You were my friend. I studied the boring parts and got them right to make you happy, not because there was anything you could do to me if I didn't. I liked you. I loved you and I wanted you to love me."

"I did. Very much. But I think you knew that, even then."

"Yeah, I did. Uncle Justin was…never really disapproving, but…there was that distance, and the weird semi-conditional thing going on. Not with you."

"Well." Bob considered the horizon, smiling a little. "You were a delightful child--intelligent, curious, sympathetic to the world. I'd have had to try very hard not to love you. If teaching you, spending time with you, were the most onerous service I'd ever provided your uncle, I'd have been far more interested in keeping him alive."

"You never lied to me about anything," Harry sighed, and lifted his head from Bob's shoulder. "You couldn't tell me everything, but you didn't lie. He never stopped, but you never did."

"Your uncle handled most of that," Bob said dryly.  
"I just realized I've loved you for about twenty-five years and I don't think I've ever said it before now."

"As I told you, you don't need to say it," Bob said, stroking his arm again. "You've never needed to say it."

"I feel like I've taken you for granted for a quarter of a century."

"Of courseyou've taken me for granted. That's my whole purpose. But if it makes you feel better, what you're doing right now more than makes up for it."

"You keep saying that. I'm not doing anything."

Bob scooted around to sit sideways on the log so he could look at Harry. "You've welcomed me into your mind, into the very most sensitive levels of it. Do you have any idea what I could do here?"

"Um. Give me crappy dreams?"

"At the very least. Harry…you know this, but if I need to say it, I will. From here, I could get the foothold needed to possess even you, even a wizard. Or, considering the defenses usually present that prevent such a happening don't seem to respond to me, especially because you're a wizard. I could be one again, because you've already prepared this body for it with the right training, and by having the right aptitudes."

Harry shrugged. "You're not gonna do that."

"Of course not. But I could. And that's a long way from being all that I could do."

Harry had begun to feel thoughtful about the idea. "Of course, for all I know, it might be fun."

"Harry!"

"If you did it, I mean. I wouldn't be in any danger then. You could give me back to…me. What do you think you'd do first if you borrowed my body for a while?"

"Slap myself in the face repeatedly until I stopped considering such a ridiculous notion. I am not going to possess you; neither is anyone else--no matter how trustworthy you may feel they are--so don't even think of it. Do you remember nothing of what I've taught you about how far to trust other members of magical society?"

"Yeah, you told me we're all a buncha skanks, pretty much; that even the honorable among us can be subverted, since the wages for it are so high; and in our world, the idea of 'right' is always so grey-area anyway. So don't trust any of us past a certain point, et cetera."

"I hope I was less vernacular and more inclusive than that, but yes, in short."

"You don't count, though. After what you did…Bob, I don't know if it's having been a ghost for centuries, but you are above reproach. All you had to do was leave me dead and find some other way to kill my uncle--alive, you could have done it, he was too arrogant to consider you a threat after you'd been his slave for so long, and…there's nothing you can't be trusted with. Okay, okay--there's nothing I wouldn't trust you with, including myself."

Harry grew still as Bob reached up and caressed his cheek. "And believe me, I feel appropriately blessed by that trust. But--for my peace of mind, if nothing else--don't even joke. You have the most generous heart of any wizard I've ever known in a long, and otherwise tedious, noncorporeal existence." His hand moved, stroking the hair back behind Harry's ear. "It makes you a fairly permanent target, it continually adds more complex dangers by distracting you with sympathetic entanglements, and it's the primary reason I have loved you so very dearly, for most of your life. Please be careful, my darling. Even of me."

Harry listened to that in his head a few times, eyes locked with Bob's pale ones, wondering what he was going to say in reply. He opened his mouth, and what came out was "The day I have to be careful of you that way is the day I give this racket up. Don't worry, Bob. I trust you that far, but just you. Even in my sleep, you're the only one I would have let in."

Bob searched his face for a moment, then sighed, looking back toward the water and the slowly-vanishing sun. "I hope I'm not endangering you by taking your word for that. It's true that I'm practically your…" he smirked. "Your familiar spirit. If there's anyone you'd--"

"Don't say that," Harry snapped, pointing angrily. "Do not say that. You're nobody's damn familiar. You're a human sorcerer, one of the most powerful that ever lived--"

"And now I'm the ghost of said sorcerer, my power summarily reduced--"

"You still have the knowledge. A lot more knowledge now, too. We're gonna find a way to free you one of these days."

Bob said nothing, pressing his lips together, and watching Harry speculatively.

Harry swung his leg over the log and got up, wandering away a few steps. "You know, my dreams--the ones I remember, at least--are largely depressing, confusing, and weird. This is one hell of a lot more fun, even if you do get a little cranky and overprotective on me." He was turning in a slow circle, taking in the view again. "Amazing." He held his hand up, sure for just a moment that he could feel sea spray on the breeze.

"It's due to your stringent practice at organized visualization and sense-memory that I can do this. Be glad you were such a good student, if for anything."

"Yeah…you zapped us to the shore--and since this is a dream…you oughta be able to create, to do, pretty much anything, right?"

"Yes, but dropping you into the middle of a completely unpredictable miasm of sense-imagery would hardly be the best way to maintain my welcome. 'Mundane but pleasant' is probably our best course."

"So no fish-tailed horses are gonna come splashing out of the seafoam?"

Bob dropped his head, snickering a little. "Not tonight, no."

"And we're not, at any point, gonna take off and fly."

"Once again, not this evening. Though we can change locales, if you like. It will get uncomfortably cool here soon, unless I raise the temperature."

"Nah, we can just go someplace else. I'd rather see the things you remember--the ones you feel like showing me--the way you actually remember them." He stopped turning, and lowered his gaze to Bob again, where he still sat on the log, facing Harry. "You look so different," he said quietly, "and it's not just the outfit. Which you look great in, by the way. Human. Comfortable. Those damn suits don't do anything for you, compared to…well, I guess it's not a fair comparison."

"I have no plans to participate in a fashion show. And I should hope I look at least a bit different."

"You're still the dictionary definition of 'blond'. I bet you got baked every summer until you learned how to keep that from happening."

"I did indeed." Bob made a moue.

"That never occurred to me, looking at your ghost. But like this…I know that's not your real body. But--" he returned to the log and leaned down, taking Bob's hand and squeezing it. "Here, I get everything from you that I ordinarily sense from living people."

"I'm creating that for you, with your passive assistance--much as I'm creating everything around us, from what exists in you. Fortunately you have a very broad and uninhibited imagination, and, as I said, you know how to use it."

"Good teacher."

Bob squeezed the hand he was holding. "And a natural aptitude." Steadying himself with the hand, he stood. "Close your eyes."

"Oh, are we going somewhere? I wanna see."

"Harry, just close your eyes," Bob sighed in annoyance. "Vertigo is uncomfortable. The transition will be easier if you don't look."

"Bob, come on, I'm not gonna get--"

"It's all right now--you can open them."

Harry chuckled and did so.

They were standing on a platform wrapped in darkness, broken only by the unnaturally bright spangles of stars overhead. The platform was crowded with tripods, quadrants, octants, drawing compasses, charts the size of bedsheets affixed to slanttables large enough to hold them, lensed scopes of various sizes and complexities--some collapsible, some far too large to be, some with separate sights, some without--geared, tubular machines encased in shining brass, bright enough that the starlight reflected from it. There were, around the perimeter of the porch/platform, up against the guardrails, smaller drawing tables covered with broad sheets of parchment that were fixed neatly under leather-padded clamps at the corners. Looking around, Harry could almost discern the shapes of trees several stories below, or at least of the subtle movement and rustling sound of the top branches. The sky, though, was visible around 360 degrees of the horizon, with no light pollution in sight. The air smelled like moisture, greenery, and woodsmoke; there was a barely discernible breeze.

"Let me guess. Your observatory?"

"No, Harry, it's the loo."

"That explains all the brass fixtures. Damn, it's dark out here." Harry was looking around, down, everywhere, but there was only starlight.

Bob chortled at him. "Yes, it's called 'night'. You don't have it in Chicago. I used to sleep out here in a cot, and have…someone wake me in a few hours. You should try it, if you're ever somewhere the night sky is truly dark." He smiled. "I'd love to see the look on your face when you see what even unenhanced human eyes can really see, once they've had a chance to adjust as far as they can."

"You wouldn't be able to laugh at me much; it'd be too dark to watch me goggle."

"I meant…well, I suppose it's the…dreaming situation that makes me so sentimental. I meant the look of wonder on your face. I'd…be very…I'd like to see it."

"Mm…" Harry tried really hard, but could come up with nothing to say but "I bet there'd be some wonder there, all right." Changing the subject, he took a chance on what he'd been squinting at--he could just make out, shifting glints here and there… ."Is that a river?"

"Indeed it is. East of Hawes--I'm telling you how the boundaries are set now, of course; they were rather flexible in my time--East of Hawes, the River Ure is joined from the south by the River Bain at Bainbridge. At one time, this was within the forest of Wensley."

"Yeah," Harry said softly, still looking down and around, careful to dodge the delicately balanced equipment. Since it was a dream, he wasn't sure why he cared, but hell, it was at least a reasonable facsimile of Bob's stuff. Knocking it over willy-nilly seemed rude.

"The Romans had a lookout station close to Bainbridge, on a hill at Addleborough--where this is. Further up the Bain is Semer Water, a small lake, which, according to legend, once drowned the village of Bainbridge after the village refused charity to a beggar."

Harry glanced back at him. "I've heard of revenge-seeking water before. You told me about the Shannon river--Sionan--I forget who she was or why she mattered--walked three times widdershins around the spring to show contempt, for what reason I also totally forget, and the spring reared up and she ran all the way to the seashore to escape, and it followed her….."

"…thus creating the river Shannon, yes. I'm surprised you remembered even as much of that as you do. I think I told it to you as a bedtime story."

"Like I said, you told good stories. They stuck with me."

"They were designed to; most of them contained useful information, couched in a fashion a child would more easily grasp. The hardest part was finding a way to give you the bedtime story you so plainly wanted without offending your growth-spurting voice-cracking pride. I had to work it into the conversation until you became interested. Since you'd rather have talked than gone to bed, I suppose it wasn't all that difficult, really."

"Um, yeah. Guess I was a little bit of an asshole even then."

"Harry, you were barely half-grown. People of that age ache to put childish things behind, even if they aren't ready to." Bob sighed, a wistful sound.

"I got news for you. Some childish things, you never really get ready to leave behind, even if you've gotta do it."

"Really," Bob drawled. "I never would have known."

"Okay then, I'll shut up and you tell me some more stuff. What did you do up here, exactly?"

"Much what it looks like. If one were going to compare me to a classical astronomer, I would be in the same category--though not at the same rank--as Tycho Brahe. Meticulous measurements of the movements of all the heavenly bodies, creating charts and timetables. Also, it's a help to more specialized astronomers, those studying the heavenly bodies themselves, to know exactly where to look for those bodies at any given time."

"Yeah, it'd be a bitch if you got hold of the most powerful telescope you could find, only to discover that what you wanted to observe would be below the equator from where you are for the next couple of months."

Bob was smiling; Harry could hear it. "I suppose it would. In any event, the ultimate purpose of the information was, in my case, quite different than that of Brahe's."

"Yeah, no shit," Harry muttered. Without touching it, he ran his hand over an armillary sphere, whose complex interlocking components, with the stand, reached higher than he could. "This looks...odd..."

"It is odd, compared to the ones you're used to seeing."

"Not only that, in your observatory, there shouldn't have been more than…--and shit, it's got another…oh, for--Bob, did you--there's another dwarf planet, Eris they call it, it was only discovered--you've got a ring built into this armillary for it! And one for Ceres, too…"

"The astronomers had no way of knowing Eris was there, but I did."

"Why the one for Ceres? It's the biggest lump of rock in the asteroid belt, but it's not even big enough to be spherical."

"I'm afraid I can't say."

"The astronomers now had no way of knowing Eris was there until a few years ago. It wasn't all that long ago they figured out Pluto was a double planet! Well, a double big rock. How did you…? How could you possibly…?"

"Harry, my darling, there are some things that I cannot reveal to anyone at all, not even you, whom I trust now more than anyone I have ever trusted." Bob sighed; he was close enough that Harry could see him leaning against the wooden guardrail around the platform, arms folded, staring up at the sky. He looked as melancholy as Harry had ever seen him; Bob didn't generally let on when he was feeling things like that. He had done so a bit more recently, but he still tended to cover his deeper emotions around Harry. "I will tell you this, though. Those who felt I needed to be killed for my acts of genuine resurrection and other black thaumaturgy…they did not trap me in my skull because they were squeamish about ending my life. Think about it. Does the White Council, any longstanding member of it--your uncle, Morgan, Ancient Mai, any others you'd care to name--strike you as the sort to shrink from acting as judge, jury and executioner?"

Harry leaned against the rail next to him. "No, they sure as hell don't. And they didn't…destroy you completely, they…"

"Killed me, yes. All other things considered, it's possible they didn't feel equal to the task of destroying me completely and being certain they had done so. And they knew merely killing me would not dispose of me, if I didn't wish to be disposed of. They sealed me to my skull--"

"As a first strike in their own defense. It wasn't punishment. You, and your aptitude with moving things, people, yourself, back and forth, over the line between life, living animation, and death. They couldn't be sure they wouldn't be letting themselves in for all kinds of revenge if they killed you. Dead is nothing to you, and it wasn't, even before you were a ghost. Dead and bound--that's a different story. Harry stood up, away from the railing, and wandered amidst the faintly gleaming brass and polished wood. "The sorceress who tried to use me in her insurance fraud scheme--they could have found her, they could have tracked her down and--shit, for that matter, they could have tracked me down when I conveniently vanished to Peru when my uncle died. It was--"

"That was inadvertent, Harry. If I hadn't shouted--"

"Then I'd be the dead guy, not my uncle. And despite what happened, here I still am, not on trial, not punished, though the Council watches me pretty close. They have to know something about how it went down; and there's a witness, namely you. You were bound to my uncle at the time, too, which would make you a hostile witness against me, but the council could bind you to tell the truth. The young wizards may like the story, but the ones with the power know I didn't do it intentionally if I did it at all; they just like having something to hold over me. Besides, I was…using Black. Just like you didn't want. Even if I didn't intend to do permanent harm with it. And that's why you were so desperate for me to leave it be, weren't you. Not to perpetuate the cycle." He turned and gazed at Bob.

From where Harry was, Bob was visible only as a shadow, head bowed. "Precisely, my darling. That's the way the Black works. You use it for what you think are good reasons, fair reasons, ultimately harmless reasons--and it ends up using you, to kill--to destroy in ways that can be even worse. That was why I wanted you not to seek vengeance, not to become involved with anything that had occurred by the Black. Not because I didn't understand your need for vengeance for your father, not even because I was concerned about your opinion of me. Which I was, but it wasn't even close to being the point. In any case, yes. The Black perpetuates itself, and I knew if it touched you..."

"Yeah. And it did. And I was an asshole, kind of off and on, to you, for a long time, and I'm sorry--"

"Please stop apologizing for that. It's entirely understandable."

"We'll have that fight some other time. My point here is, they didn't punish you for crimes, Bob. They killed you and bound you in order to defend themselves. You were too powerful; they were afraid of you. You fucking knew there was a planet beyond Pluto and Charon, bigger than either of 'em, and most people, even magic workers, didn't even know about anything past Saturn. But you have--had--a fucking armillary sphere--"

"And a couple of orreries."

"--that shows the solar system the way NASA is only starting to figure it out. How?"

"As I said, I dare not reveal that. I'm not trying to frustrate you, Harry. I'm protecting us both, especially you. I'm assuming you don't want to join me in this eternal non-existence."

"Bob, that's it. If they could have destroyed you, sent your soul on, they would have--that's how learning and development happen with humans. They didn't even try to kill you entirely, because they were too busy covering their own asses." He took the few steps necessary to reach Bob's side. "It's no wonder Morgan thinks you're so dangerous. Bob, they didn't do what they did because you did wrong. They did what they did because they were afraid of your power. You were something…something like they'd never seen."

Bob reached up and laid a hand on Harry's shoulder. "My transgressions were deserving of punishment, Harry, make no mistake. I disobeyed rules that are in place because the dangers are not apparent, and the motives won't matter once the line has been passed. One will be corrupted. I…the sorcerer I was at the time did need to be controlled, and, it being me, there was only one way to do it. You're quite right in that they could not have destroyed me. They did the next best thing, and called it…"

"They called it damning you, punishing you, but it was only the best they could manage against you. They knew that killing someone with your particular power with necromancy was no way to eliminate the threat they felt they were under--so, enter the skull. Enter the story about damning you for eternity." Harry was doing a slow boil, and he didn't really become aware of it until he felt Bob's other hand on his opposite shoulder.

"Harry. Please try to stay calm."

"This is BULLSHIT!"

"This is politics, if you like. They could have done worse to me, Harry. You know me, you know who I am now. The person who existed then…I will never know for certain, I had no thought of thusly using my considerable power--but I did do things I never thought I would have desire or reason to do, until I was enmeshed in the methods, in the power, and in the sources of that power. I was capable of things few others in the world could do; and yes, my abilities were vast, beyond any other sorcerous power known in this part of the world at the time--but that person, presented with the right stimulus, might very well have performed actions that are--or should be--out of the human sphere. Humans simply don't have the perspective for some of the things I had the option of doing."

"Bob…" Harry knew his expression was agonized, and he felt Bob pull him close, rocking him gently. "That's why, when my uncle's copy brought you back, and you died…"

"Correct. If I were ever unbound from the skull, if I ever truly died…I would be unfettered. It would do little good to inform anyone that there is no longer any need for such control--that the centuries I've been…here, have taught me more than anyone has ever learned, even more than Ancient Mai in some things, mostly because Mai is something of an immovable object."

Harry snorted into Bob's shoulder.

Bob chuckled. "They really only need to look at you, to see that even the powerful among us can be conscientious, loving, desperate to help any who need it--for as large as your heart is, it is still too small to hold all the caring you have to give. Frankly, though, I think they know it--I think that's why they don't trust you with my custody, and I think that's why Morgan and others think I should be bestowed upon a more ploddingly ordinary--and controllable--wizard. You are entirely unpredictable to them, and so am I--for completely different reasons; but, rather than a unique synergy, they see an explosive catalytic reaction in the making, as long as you have my skull."

"A very, very big boom."

"Very big indeed, my darling." Bob leaned up an inch or so to kiss Harry's forehead. "We are one of the wild cards that threaten the current order--and that order is very old and has lasted a very long time because--while sometimes summary, often harsh, and seldom sympathetic--it keeps a certain level of control; and that control is necessary, both for our kind and the rest of the world."

"I kinda like that," Harry muttered at his boots, almost inaudible as he rubbed his nose in nervousness.

"What? The idea of our possibly incendiary combination?"

"That nickname. Um, I heard you, I get what you're saying even if I don't like it and I'd rather argue if we weren't sorta busy here, but…"

"What nickname?"

"Um. Never mind, it's not important. And, uh, feel free to…you know. The forehead-kissing thing."

Bob smiled at this. "I had wanted to reassure you that way when you were young. I'm glad it's not too late."

Embarrassed as hell, Harry shook his head, staring down at the floorboards between them in the gloom. "It's not."

He felt a light caress across his hair--what there was left of it, he thought with a mental snort--and decided he'd better get his feet back under him. He chanted a calming cantrip--inaudibly, but it wasn't the sound that made it work--and said "Look, I'm being selfish. You're showing me these places and things that were important to you, for me, aren't you? You're showing me what you think I'd like, and wasting valuable time when you could be wallowing in the luxury of having a body. Sort of a body. Feeling, I mean. We can at least feed you, whattaya say? What sounds good?" He slung an arm around Bob's shoulders, with a little, slightly embarrassing childlike thrill at being able to do so, ready to lead him off--only to realize he had no idea how to get down from the observatory platform. This being a dream, he guessed he could fly, but he didn't want to screw up whatever Bob was doing by trying.

Bob saved him. "Frankly, Harry, I'm not sure I could deal with so much sensory stimulation in the space of only a few hours. It's been centuries, and I had no opportunity to exploit the fetch's dubious gift. You've been very generous with your touch, letting me get used to the feel and smell of another human, one that I love. It might be rather weak-livered of me, but I'm not sure I can take many more sorts of sensory stimulation in one night."

Harry blinked, and grinned. "That's right. Every time I dream--you can do this, right?"

"So long as you permit it. So long as you want me to."

"Well shit, Bob, it's not like I'd rather be dreamin' dissociated crap that's more like acid flashes than anything else, than be…" he squeezed the arm around Bob, but finished the sentence to the planks of the observatory platform. "…than be here."

"You are with me all day, most days, Harry. I'd have thought…"

"Well, you aren't around all the time unless I need you, usually. Days go by and I don't see you, or not more than you sticking your head in to say something snide, and vanishing again. And anyway I can't…um." he muttered the last bit very fast and to the floor planks again.

Bob smiled, his eyes soft.

Harry wasn't looking; he just went on "I want you here. Don't worry," and he was sure--almost just totally sure--that his voice didn't crack at all.

Bob looked at the floor himself a moment, taking a breath--taking a breath, one he could feel as a breath--and said "It's also possible for me to control your dreams--so long as it's with your willing cooperation--without manifesting myself in them. Well, I would be manifesting myself in the sense that the dreams would follow my direction--I'd take my cues from you; your lucid dreaming is at least fair-to-middling--"

Harry kicked Bob's ankle. "Asshole."

"Violence is the refuge of those whose position logic will not support, my darling."

"Oh, bag it, Bob, if I ever got sick of you you'd know about it. For one thing, the way you described it, you couldn't do this at all if I didn't want you to, right?"

"That's not quite it. I couldn't do it if you didn't trust me. Fearing that I might harm you in some way, and suffering crashing boredom at having me 'oh bloody hell underfoot yet again--'" Harry cracked up, leaning on Bob, as Bob, grinning, finished "--aren't quite the same."

Harry was still laughing, hanging onto Bob with one arm and the railing with the other. "If I get sick of you, we'll try what you mentioned--you can just make yourself inconspicuous. I won't take away the opportunity for you to have…have sensastion, weight and smell and, and corporeal life, again. I don't know how you're doing it--I'm good with visions, but dreams are a different animal. And believe me, I'd rather have this kind of dream than the kind where I get chased by Blue Meanies though a shopping mall with no pants on yelling banishments that don't work."

"You mean, you wouldn't have the pants on, or the--"

Harry gave him another token kick. "Shut up. Until such time as I say or do something that would indicate otherwise, you're welcome here, and I'd really kinda like you to shut the fuck up about it now 'cause I'm bored with the topic."

"I'm overwhelmed by such sentiment."

"Asshole," Harry said again, and suddenly squeezed Bob close in his arms. Bob, laughing too softly to hear but enough for Harry to feel, returned his embrace.

"I'm gonna say something mushy, here."

"I'll probably manage to endure it." Bob's voice was soft.

"I'm glad…I hate what happened to you, and I hate how you're trapped now, but I'm glad I got the chance to know you, and I'm glad I can help you out a little now. And, um, I have a confession to make."

They separated, still holding each other, enough to see each other easily. "My figurative loins are girded; confess away."

Harry gave him a smirk, then said "I, uh. I used to sneak your skull into bed with me sometimes."

Bob blinked at him, then smiled and shook his head, cocking it to the side a bit. He sighed. "Harry, my own darling, did you honestly think I didn't know that?"

"You knew?"

"I knew. How could I not?"

"Well…you were helping my uncle. I always got the skull back sometime before he'd gone to bed; I only did it when I knew he planned to be doing some working or other that would take all night, and that he'd need you."

Bob stroked the side of Harry's face, and Harry turned his head toward Bob's hand a little, closing his eyes, embarrassed. Bob murmured "I always know where that skull is, to the angstrom. And I could feel you, holding it, too."

Harry's eyes got huge. "You what?"

"Not physically, but it was a deeply warming sensation. I never told you I knew, because I didn't want to send you into a teenaged spasm of humiliation. And I was enjoying it too much, and I knew you'd stop..."

"Okay, I gotta go kill myself now. I'd kill you too but I can't."

"Harry…" Bob rolled his eyes and shook his head, pulling Harry close again. "You were a frightened orphan, terribly alone in the world, in an unimaginably bizarre situation, without anything in the way of routine affection. Nevertheless, I was flattered; you know that wizardry of certain advanced calibers requires sacrifices be made in one's life, and it had never occurred to me that--in either life or death--I'd have the honor of a child's trust and affection. Especially a child such as you were. If it helped you at all, I'm very glad of it."

Harry was quiet for a few minutes, telling himself to suck it up and start acting like a guy old enough to be examining his hairline in the mirror every morning, and less like a suicidally embarrassed twelve-year-old. "Thanks. I mean that."

"Of course, your uncle would have taken exception if he'd known."

"Then you didn't tell him?" Yeah, Harry'd sure have known about it if Justin had found that out.

"Of course not." Bob shrugged. "Your uncle commanded my services, as a number of sorcerous types have, since my…call it 'execution'. But he did not command my affection or my voluntary loyalty." Bob smiled and rested a fingertip beneath Harry's chin. "You're the first to win those."

"I'm the first…?"

"You are the first master I've loved in any way, yes."

"Is that why…shit, if it is, I feel even worse. I…saw you flat-out disobey my uncle more than once. Even when I'm an asshole, you don't disobey me. Kind of an ugly word, but I guess it's what I mean. You argue with me, sure, but…"

"I obey you, on the rare occasions you give me a flat order, because I get my revenge. I don't even have to try. You always wander the place hangdog, feeling like a heel, until you find some way to apologize to me, usually without exactly apologizing." He smiled. "You take me out or do me some other pleasant turn to apologize, and sometimes, you actually apologize when you do it. You only do it when your temper gets the better of you, Harry, and rarely then. You don't like ordering me around, really. Instructions, directions--there's nothing upsetting or inappropriate about any of that. We do have a relationship aside from our friendship, and we can't simply ignore it."

"Yeah, I just want you to know that even if I crack and say go back to your skull, I don't…mind, I don't hate it when you argue with me, I mean, usually--we argue, we just…that's what we do. I need you for that. I can be a little…"

"Impulsive? I know. And usually, when we argue, you don't send me to my skull; one of us simply stomps off." Bob smiled. "Sometimes with especially bright lights and smoke."

Harry smirked. "Yeah. And, um, I love you too, by the way."

"I know, my darling," Bob said softly, and backed up enough to kiss his forehead again. "And now it's time to let you enter a less dream-saturated level of sleep."

"But it's only been a few--"

"Time is very fluid in dreams, you know that much. Too much of your sleep cycle spent in such an active dream state, and you'll feel it tomorrow, I promise you. Let's get you comfortable."

Harry decided to go for the mush, and squeezed Bob's ribs a little. "I'm pretty comfortable now," he said, smiling shyly.

Bob smiled back, but remained implacable. "Close your eyes, Harry."

Harry sighed and did so.

He felt the floor vanish under his feet, then his weight shiftng; it was slow and gentle. He simply turned, drifting.

"You can open your eyes now."

"You must think I got the weakest stomach in…whoa."

He was in pajama pants, lying on a wide bed in a room whose dimensions were hard to discern through the draperies that surrounded the mattress proper. They were almost transparent--basic netting-- fluttering a little in the wind from the opened casement windows he could see here and there through the shifting gaps. The mattress felt great; he wished he knew where to get one like this--his back would love him for it. Soft, colorless light, from no particular direction--it seemed there were windows on three sides of the room, at least, and a moon out--let him look around a bit, and see Bob sitting on the foot of the bed, on the corner opposite the side Harry was on.

"Um…so what do I do now?"

"Close your eyes and relax. You'll enter the next proper level of sleep."

"C'mere." Harry held his hand out.

"Harry--"

"Come here, Hrothbert of Bainbridge, don't make me summon you," Harry grinned.

Bob gave him a sour look and moved up the mattress.

"Here. Come here." They thrashed and fumbled a bit. "No, like this--"

"Harry," Bob said softly, and there was something about Bob's voice that got to Harry sometimes, rich and infinitely gentle. "Let me."

They ended up with Harry's head on Bob's shoulder, Bob cradling him easily despite Harry's being a bit larger. "I thought it might be…nice," Bob explained haltingly, "in honor of…of those occasions when you had to make do with my skull." For once, he seemed as tongue-tied as Harry was about this sort of thing.

"Well, it's not much of a comparison," Harry sighed, sliding his topmost arm farther around Bob's torso. "This is incredible…" he barely murmured it, and drifted into dreamless sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the characters and I don't own this story.

**_LOUD AND CLEAR! I DO NOT, HAVE NOT AND WILL NOT EVER OWN THIS STORY!_**

**This story is the property of Tang Guangzhen who was kind enough to give me permission to post this here. Any flames about that will be used to fry your ass.**

**Thank You**

* * *

Harry lay smoking. Not like with a cigarette, or anything. He just watched the twisting, wafting tendrils of acrid combustion residue drift upward toward the ceiling, which was the only thing he could see, and that was only with one eye. Well, the ceiling, and--oh, great. 

"So. Progress?"

Harry thought evil, slanderous things at Bob. "If I could--ah, screw it. Is the athanor still there?"

"Not as we've known and loved it, no. I'm afraid it has shuffled off this mortal coil and will no longer be maintaining your alchemical brainchildren at their proper--if such is the word--fixed temperatures. As I tried to tell you, the presence of sulfuric acid in potassium alum is simply too great an obsttacle to overcome with this particular--"

"Look, I knew I was taking a risk. I just didn't know the whole damn place was gonna go up. Can you see about an illusory cloak while I…" he moved, grunted, and was still again for a moment. "…lie here?"

"Are you going to be all right?" Real concern in Bob's voice this time.

"The future tense is what's operative there. I am not currently all right, I just got thrown into a wall. But I've been thrown into how many walls since you've known me? Once I get my feet under me, I'll be…upright."

"Oh…very well, but I'll be back in just a moment. If you're hurt beyond your ability to deal with alone--"

"I've been working with things that explode if you expose them to air, Bob. I'm so warded I'm surprised I can fart. I'm shaken up and bruised; that's all."

"You're a bit disheveled as well. You might consider a shower--going! Going…" Bob sighed his way out of the lab as Harry made threatening gestures in his direction without getting up off his back.

Oh, jeez. He rolled over, prompting several groans for several reasons, and closed his eyes, concentrating. He'd never been very good at healing himself. For that matter, nobody was very good at healing themselves. It was like perpetual motion, something from nothing; he knew of witches and others who could draw on almost unlimited power sources to heal, but it almost never worked for the person in question, only for others. Some wizards, such as Ancient Mai, could go into healing trances, but that seemed to be an individualized trait. He supposed that was why witches had covens. Wizards had a lot of cabals and Councils and people not trusting each other, so not much healing went on unless things were just pretty darn bad, a la Ancient Mai nearly killing them all, including herself, to eliminate that goddamn Drake, and the rest of them pouring energy into her so she could get them back into their own world.

He still sometimes looked at Murph just a second too long when she said hello to him. He suspected she was starting to notice.

Speaking of witches, the neighborhood High Priestess was going to be ticked. Her coven were getting tired of the ectenic booms from his building while they were having circle. Well, what could you expect from people who practiced magic as part of a religion. A nature religion, no less. Bob's lectures to him on how religion and magic were, in ancient times, indistinguishable, had pretty much been regurgitated for exams without being absorbed in any significant way. It just sounded way too uncontrolled to Harry. Bob the magical control freak, on the other hand, seemed to think there was real value in the idea.

Harry, in stages, got up off the floor, creaking, wincing and hissing here and there. He leaned against the main worktable and looked around; the aludels and subliming pots were all over the damn place, in various states of dramatic disrepair, and Bob had been right; the athanor was history--not so much because of one cataclysmic blowout, but because of one too many.

He sighed and leaned his ass against the edge of the table--and his eyes got huge and he coughed violently.

"Oh," Bob said, coming back through the wall, frowning. "Yes, it'd have spread by now--I'm afraid…well, that oversized vasculum you've been dragging about for years has…"

Following Bob's gaze, Harry could see for himself. The metal plant-collecting container had crashed into the bottle of asafoetida next to it on the shelf.

"My sympathies for your, ah, inconvenience," Bob offered. Yeah, easy for him to say. He couldn't smell the stuff--the translation of the name for which was devil's shit, and it had pretty much the same name in every language it had a name in at all.

But the godawful reek, the athanor, and the aludels, not to mention the ingredients he'd been trying to sublimate, seemed to be the only real casualties. Well, those, and Harry. The rest of the lab, while not its usual unsparkling self, was functionally intact.

Bob's rich voice murmured, in the tone he always used when he was being understatedly comforting, "I've instigated the Charm of Aware Air; if your shielding was overcome, and anyone has any exception to take to the sudden disturbance, we'll know before they have a chance to surprise us. So, perhaps you could begin a spell of specific compound dissolution; while it works, you could clean yourself up a bit."

"Too bad I can't just open a window." Harry sighed, managing a tired half smile.

Bob smiled back, with about as much enthusiasm, and Harry rubbed his eyes and set up a spell that would make the place less stinky.

* * *

When he came out of the shower, feeling very slightly more human, he wasn't surprised to find Bob waiting for him, standing with Boblike erect posture, hands behind his back.

"What turned up?"

"Apparently the neighbors reported the noise of the explosion to the local constabulary, but your wards of Forgetfulness and Dispassion, and the illusory cloak, kept the officers from investigating too closely. I was prepared with a strategy of distraction, but it was unneeded."

"Thanks, Bob. I'd be lost without you." Harry wrapped the towel he'd just been scrubbing behind his ears with around his waist, and sat down in exhaustion on the toilet lid, leaning his forehead in his palms. "I know your opinion here, you've made it clear as a churchbell for the last week…but I can't explain it, I know the answer is in that codex."

"It very well may be; I believe the problem may lie in your exegesis."

"My what? You think I'm…reading the wrong stuff into it?"

"It's not the clearest document Pandragoz ever wrote. And he had a tendency to arrive at his most profound insights when he'd been in his cups. His codexes were seldom formal recordings of demonstrated experimental results--more enchiridions. Actually not even that; they were working notebooks, half-legible with winestains and incrassate coagulations punctuating that which was not clear as the upper air in the first place."

"So booze worked for the guy. I admit I'm surprised he lived as long as he did, any brand of wizardry performed drunk off your tuchis is usually a quick ride to the next life, but when he was right, he was right."

"Not only that," Bob went on implacably, "a Drake and a cacodaemon are not the same thing."

"For pete's sake, I know that, but…look, I swear to you I sensed Murphy." Harry stood and pulled the towel off, hanging it up and picking up a pair of shorts. "I think that aspect may translate, and that's what I need, here! I totally sensed Murph and I invited the thing in! If these fucking Drakes can do that--and I for one did not know they could--I need something that'll warn me of them, no matter what they look like. Besides, how do I know I won't become involved with something they are interested in? I already have once, and it was nothing I did. I was minding my own business."

"It's incredibly unlikely--"

"It was before, too."

"Which does not make it any more likely now, Harry, that's a logical fallacy and I know you know it, because I taught you that--the Gambler's Fallacy. Ancient Mai is a special case. She's not called that because she's out of step with the times or some such. If anyone in the vicinity of Chicago--and by that I mean North America--is going to have any reason to come under attack by a Drake, it will be Mai and a very few others like her, not you, despite your unusual gifts, and not any other wizard. What happened with Mai was obviously personal."

"Bob, look." Harry was trying to get his hair to behave acceptably--it was getting harder every day, seemed like--as he spoke, looking into the mirror. "I get that you're trying, in your pessimistic defeatist Bob way, to reassure me. But I didn't much like what happened in my own goddamn home just because some fellow sorcerers sought shelter here--whether we're the best of buddies or not, we stick together when it counts. Next time some friend of mine comes strolling up to the storefront with a big smile, I wanna know, without having to bust 'em with my staff for their true appearance, whether it's friend or foe. Our wards mostly do that--by the way, you said yourself you didn't entirely trust them any more--"

Bob sighed dramatically. "I knew I would regret admitting that."

"--but not against these things. I don't have what it takes to fight, repel, or in any way outmagic a Drake--it took the fucking otherside darkness to kill the last one! But there are enough similarities in the right places to cacodaemons to give us a clear heads-up--identify the Drake while it's still outside, before I've been an idiot. I'm not talking fighting Drakes here. I'm just talking being warned."

"Or, perhaps--depending on the situation--the Drake would detect the warding and defeat it with hardly a thought."

"I don't care. Even Morgan agreed this one couldn't have come in through our wards unless it was given some sort of passage--"

"That wasn't what anyone said; Morgan agreed that the wards were undisturbed, that's all. No one said the Drake couldn't have defeated our wards if it had to and worked at it. Harry…I didn't detect it, either, though I admit I was distracted part of that time. We separately deduced its presence and that it must have got in on the sneak. But you had to deduce its identity, and Morgan had to tell us what exactly it was, just before it revealed itself anyway. It won't make any difference to--"

"You could detect it now."

"We hypothesize that I could detect it now."

Harry sighed. "Okay, I got an ulterior motive."

"Yes, I suspected as much."

"The Council doesn't like me having custody of your skull. They didn't like the other Morningways having you either, but unlike my uncle, the Council--generally speaking--obeys the rules and you're in our bloodline. Then I turn up, a 'Morningway' with--with--"

"With a heart, my darling. It's not bragging if it's true," Bob said matter-of-factly.

Harry gave him a warm look, answered by the gentle expression in Bob's pale eyes, and turned away to pull a Henley shirt on. "We've talked about this. They don't like us together. They only helped me find you because they knew you were more dangerous to them with anybody who would steal you, than you were with me; and it was my job to go after you. But they want you under their own control--Morgan said some major shit to that effect right to my face, and if I hadn't been more interested in finding you, I'd have called him on it then a lot worse than I did. Not only that--I already knew you were powerful. Really powerful. Now I find out you were even more powerful than that, than any half dozen of them, except maybe Mai. Somebody could easily try for you again--maybe not a council member specifically, but somebody who's a wizard, maybe a powerful wizard, one who could get through my defenses. That's the other reason I'm working on these…"

"Exceedingly obscure and painfully dangerous warding practices?"

"Fine, whatever you want to call it. But we're still doing what we do, it's not getting in the way of that. We got that trapped spectre on his way, and I cured that werehuman, and--"

"And I'm sure that all the people you've helped, and continue to help, are appropriately grateful. But you'll not be able to help them if the next failed experiment destroys your lab, and you with it. I'm not saying your concern is unfounded; just that you're going about this the wrong way."

"Well, then, Bob--why don't you help me here?" He gestured, broadly and sarcastically, then walked through Bob to get out the door--the weird tingle and coldness was actually pretty familiar, no matter how he bitched about it--continuing "If you'd help me, I might actually get something done about it that'd be safe enough to keep you happy, and effective enough that I'm not a wad of nerves half the time."

"I have a suggestion. Pandragoz's codex--forget the concordance you've been using and read the bloody thing all the way through. I know you can do it in a couple of hours, and I'd rather you did it without magical assistance. It will remain in your subconscious best that way. Remember…I did know the man, if briefly."

Harry stopped and turned around. "What are you going to…?"

Bob smiled. "You'll find out tonight, my darling. Right now, you've a laboratory to set to rights. Care for a few helpful suggestions? I'm told I'm wonderful at supervising."

Harry grinned and swatted a hand through Bob's head. Bob didn't duck, of course, but he smirked.

* * *

Before Harry crawled off to bed, he checked one more time on the atmosphere in the lab; while he was concerned that there might still be inimical substances floating around, either as part of the explosion itself or jarred loose by it, there was also the faint smell of devil's crap or whatever. When he mentioned it, Bob speared him with a nasty look and reminded him that the word was Persian in origin, "asa" referred to the plant's resin and "foetida" merely to any bad smell. Harry knew how many languages Bob spoke, and he didn't bother mentioning that Bob knew perfectly well that in every major European language he knew about, the plant's name ended with "dreck" (shit) or the equivalent and usually started with something that meant "devil", and most English speakers called it--great, Bob was getting him bent out of shape over the etymology of the name of a stinky plant. He was going to bed.

He finished the last page of Pandragoz's codex, set the book down--he hadn't understood parts of it, and other parts were, as Bob said, illegible, but Bob had also said it didn't matter. His mind was still whirling with archaic English and French when Bob's bright point of red light, tumbling black-and-damson non-smoke, and coruscant gold scintillants drifted up over the edge of the bedroom railing. Harry smiled a little as he turned the light off. "I hope you're gonna let me snooze on it a while first."

"Of course. Humans enter a very deep, non-dreaming state for the first part of a normal sleep cycle. I shan't interfere with your normal brainwave patterns, for pity's sake. You're odd enough as it is."

"Who says I want normal brainwave patterns?" Harry sighed, and began to drift off. He'd had a bit of a day.

* * *

"Waking up" was different this time; he wasn't lying on a warm fuzzy object that turned out to be Bob, for one thing. He thought at first something had gone wrong, because he felt cool cotton bedsheets underneath him and tangled around his legs. Then a breeze wafted across his face, with a barely discernible touch of seaspray.

He blinked; the light was even and pale and a little silvery. He got his elbows under him and then sat up, and in the process, realized where he must be. The back-loving mattress was underneath him again.

He rubbed his face and glanced around; the translucent draperies around the bed made it hard to focus for a moment, but once he got his bearings, he noticed Bob sitting in one of the broad windowsills, the casement locked open against the ocean's breeze. The windows were big; the sill was only about a foot off the floor. Bob had his back braced against one side of the window and one foot propped on the sill, the other on the floor to steady himself. He was holding a book in one arm, the other hand propping his head. Harry had never seen Bob holding a book, but this was so exactly like what he would have expected, right down to the frown of concentration, that he grinned, still bleary-eyed. "Hi."

"Hello, my darling," Bob said, glancing up. "Are you feeling well?"

"Yeah, I'm fine, no problems. Isn't that Pandragoz's codex?"

"It is indeed." Bob got up slowly, still staring at the page he'd been studying so intently, holding the heavy tome in one forearm while he used the other hand to boost himself easily to his feet. He was dressed like Harry was, in light sleeping clothes, and by all gods, he did not look bad. If Bob wasn't making any additions or elaborations on his physical condition at the time of his…death, then he'd been taking advantage of his knowledge of human physiology during his life. Of course, for that matter, Harry now felt fine even after his alchemical oven blew him into the wall. It was hard to be sure of anything in these dreams, despite Bob's concern with making them as coherent, mundane, and comfortable as possible for Harry.

Bob tossed aside some of the drapes with one arm; the spare half-light rendered him in chiaroscuro, and between that, and his looking so alive, Harry had to stare a moment.

Bob blinked. "Is something wrong?"

"No. It's just…the way you look different thing." He flailed an arm in inadequate illustration. "So what have you found?"

"I let you stay in a deeper level of sleep for longer than usual--don't worry; it won't hurt you, you're very tired this evening, and it's a lack of the deepest levels that makes humans ill--so I could refamiliarize myself with this…" he sighed. "…piece of work. I've perused it before, of course, but it was quite a while back."

"That's why you had me scan it before bed. Bob, whatever you may have thought of the guy personally, the codex has a lot of valid information in it--a lot that's gone into my own writings--"

"Easy, Harry, I didn't say it was without merit; if I thought that, I wouldn't be doing this." He had a seat on the bed, turning and bending one knee so he could place the book on the mattress between them.

Harry slithered over closer, yawning. "Are you making me sleepy?"

Bob blinked at him. "Why would I be doing that? Although this place is designed for relaxation. It's a a place for you to retire and be comfortable, if your dream experiences become overwhelming."

"That last part isn't likely, at this rate; you're treating me like a prize Pekingese."

"You say that now," Bob said, very softly--a dangerous softness that Harry had heard before, but the danger this time was in friendly warning, not threat. "I've been careful, and I'll continue to be, my darling." He reached over and stroked Harry's cheek, his hand moving back to thread fingers through his hair. "No matter the…unusual experiences you've had in your life, none of it compares to what can happen inside your own mind if proper care is not taken. Believe me. I know."

"I…yeah, I bet…I bet you do…" Harry moved his head against Bob's hand. "I get that, Bob, I'm not stupid. I guess I oughta be thanking you, really."

"I think we've had the conversation about who ought to be thanking who. Shall we agree that we have a win-win situation happening concerning your dreamtime, and concentrate on our current project?" But Bob was still stroking Harry, threading his fingers through his hair just above his neck before sliding his hand lightly down.

Harry sagged to the bed, his eyes closing. "I had a long day, Bob. I know I'm actually asleep already, but if you keep doing that--"

Bob was smiling. "You're going to drop to a deeper level again, I know. Your dreaming period will be relatively short tonight, as tired as you are. My apologies." He stilled his hand a moment, then started to pull it away.

"Don't apologize, and don't…you don't have to stop. Just maybe don't pet me to sleep."

Bob slid a hand down Harry's bare arm, taking his hand. "Thank you."

"And stop thanking me already. I like you touching me. I've missed out being able to touch you since I was a kid. I used to hug your skull at night."

"Many people, deprived of touch in their formative years, are never comfortable with it, but never understand what it is that makes them feel so unsatisfied, emotionally and in other ways…"

"Well, I do. I had my Dad for a while. Call it a perk of being a Morningway wizard with a heart."

Harry took a deep breath and lifted his head, propping himself on his elbows, moving the codex a little so he could get a better look at it. "It's not exactly bright enough to read in here, away from the windows."

Large candles appeared in iron floor sconces at each corner of the bed, the draperies fluttering dangerously near the tall flames. Dream, Harry reminded himself.

Harry looked at Bob. "Wouldn't a reading lamp work?"

"Wasn't the first thing that occurred to me. I am getting up in years, you know. Besides, yours keep exploding."

"Oh. Okay. So what are you looking at here?"

"This." Bob finished rearranging himself, and the massive codex, on the bed so he and Harry could both prop up on their elbows and look at it at the same time, lying close enough for numerous points of contact as they turned pages and pointed. Harry had to force himself to pay attention to Bob's words as he made notes about this and that. Harry, in point of fact, was a little groggy, and the oddness of Bob's weight displacement on the mattress, the anomalous warmth coming from the body next to his own, a smell of skin, and sea wind from the window he'd been sitting in, his intensely blond curls ruffled a bit by the air…damn, Bob was scarily good at this dream directing thing--

Harry cut off his train of thought with "Okay, so you're saying that what we need here is help, right? That it's a pipe dream that I can summon a cacodaemon and get the information I need, despite the right words of command being right here."

"Um, yes," Bob said, blinking at Harry's interruption. "I believe that's what Pandragoz did, judging by what I see in the rest of the codex--and why you couldn't make sense of the system of control he used. It wasn't a system of control at all--it was a system of communication."

Harry blinked at him. "So my whole why-are-you-asking-and-not-telling thing was…that. So, then, you…think we need to talk to a neutral daemon?"

"Perhaps we we might try an agathodaemon..."

"Neutral daemons usually want something for their time and trouble, but so do eudaemons and agathodaemons, Bob. We're still going to have to do a little wheeling and dealing, which is always risky with daemons, whether they're trapped cacodaemons or--"

"I happen to know several daemons personally," Bob said pointedly, and smirked when Harry shut up real fast. Well, figuratively. His jaw still hung.

"They're often quite pleasant folk," Bob said, his smirk growing wider. "Though they might want a return favor, you're correct about that. But unlike with cacodaemons, or occasionally daemons, it's never much of a moral quandary. Usually they--"

Harry spun and grabbed a pillow and began pummeling Bob with it. Bob let out a cry of half-laughter and slapped the codex shut to protect it--such things were heavily ingrained in sorcerers, dream scenario or not--then twisted to procure his own weapon and began a return assault.

Harry suddenly jumped heavily on Bob, knocking him flat, using the moment of shock to deprive him of his weapon. "Are you shitting me or not?"

"I am not. And as to how, well, you have an expression you use in your country lately--what is it--ah, yes. I plead the fourth."

"That's the fifth, you sonofabitch, and if--" Bob was gazing up at him, his startlingly pale eyes holding that peculiar depth one usually associated with dark eyes, like Harry's.

"You can't tell me."

"No."

"Ah, hell." Harry sat up off him--and the fact he'd been lying full length on him with both of them in pajama pants only really hit them both at that moment.

Bob didn't move, his head tilted to the side to meet Harry's eyes. "I trust you implicitly, my darling," he said, very softly. "I also love you with a passion that speaks to the boy you were, and the student, and the teacher, and the colleague, and the beautifully human man that you have somehow grown to be, despite--well, everything. Please, let me choose the best times to reveal certain things." He closed his eyes and took a breath, then opened them again and continued "You can command me to tell you whatever you wish. There's nothing I can do to stop you. But I would not continue on like this, if you died as a result of something I had told you at an improper time, before you thoroughly understood the necessary background. I won't have another master after you, Harry."

Harry sat there and hyperventilated, torn between whacking Bob a major one and flinging himself back down and loving Bob up like a giant stuffed animal until his ultra-fair skin was in danger of bruising. "You make me insane sometimes, you know that?"

"Yes," Bob said quietly. "I'm sorry."

"Don't, don't, don't, oh hell don't," Harry chanted, falling backward. "I hate it when you apologize with that…that soft thing happening in your voice. It makes me feel like shit, and like even worse shit because I know you're not trying to make me feel like shit. You're just…you're just sorry," he finished in a tired, helpless whisper, and sighed, his eyes closing.

The mattress moved, and Bob's arms came around him; their legs tangled clumsily and then interlaced more smoothly, and Harry clung back with enough strength to provoke a small sound from the other man as he rolled them so Bob was on top.

"Could, uh, could we maybe get on the plan for summoning the daemon later, after I'm a little more rested up? 'Cause being sleepy and fired up and confused…and, um, with you, like this…makes me…" he didn't have to finish. His rapidly growing erection was soon a log against his belly and Bob's flank.

Bob caressed his forehead, murmuring against his cheek. "Oh, Harry…oh, Gods and demons, I'm very…out of practice…after a certain time, even though one may retain an outsider's--somewhat voyeuristic fascination…"

"You don't wanna," Harry whispered, quietly accepting, and stroked the baby-soft paleness of Bob's thick hair and on down over the fine-grained skin of his back. "It's okay."

"Harry, no--I want to, believe that. But--for one thing, I'm…surprised you're…well, that you're interested. You love women--as friends, as potential sexual partners, as people generally. Your friends tend to be women, because…I think you like the physical and verbal affection, and emotional closeness, that seem to come more easily to women in this society. Also, I've never seen you show…this sort of interest in a man, and I've known you since before you'd made it properly into puberty."

Harry smiled drowsily. "You're right. I love women. They're dishy. And usually pretty nice people. I like nice people, in case you haven't noticed."

"I've noticed," Bob smiled, "it's one of the most endearing things about you." He kissed Harry's mouth very lightly. The silky-soft skin brush on an area with that many nerve endings made Harry shiver. He moaned softly, and his hips rolled up a little, gently.

"Sorry," Bob whispered, trying to hide a smile.

"You are not," Harry said, smiling and letting his hands run up and down the fine skin of Bob's torso, enjoying the feeling of a solidifying erection pushing against his flank alongside his own. "I guess I'm bi, but not quite like you are--to the degree I am, I think everybody but 'phobes are, you know. Me, with women, yeah, there's an automatic maybe, at least at first; but with men…it's really always had to be a specific…something special there, before it'd even occur to me."

"You have to be specifically interested in a particular man, on a deeper level, before that sort of attraction begins?"

"Some men. Felt a lot for a few guys without…but, um, yeah." He was panting softly, trying to keep his words coherent, because Bob really did deserve to hear this, even if Harry was making a hash out of it. "You're…the most important person in my life. You don't have a jealousy hangup. I don't either, and I just…" he fussed around a little, rubbing their cocks between their bodies, which made them both groan and slump laxly everywhere else, "…don't see how this…could be anything but good, all the way around, and…Bob, is there some kinda problem with you knowin' me as a kid?" He nuzzled Bob's neck, an affectionate gesture, with very little of seduction in it.

"My darling--no, that's not it at all. When you've seen as many people be born, and live their lives, and finally die, as I have, you gain a certain perspective about such things. I loved you as a boy, Harry, but I love you now as a man. Not the youngest man in the world, either--"

"Asshole." Harry grinned and squeezed around Bob's waist.

Bob grinned back, then sobered. "It's just…I haven't even been able to nerve myself up to try eating yet, much less..."

Harry nodded, shushing Bob gently. "I'll take care of you. If you feel a freakout coming on, we'll stop; if it's too much, we'll reconnoiter. I understand how you must have had to…turn sex into such a nonissue in your head, so that you could live with it--or without it--live with the way things were, and with no--um--endocrine system, and now this--having access to my endocrine system, my brain, all the glands and chemicals that affect…noticing things, and…the feelings from it--has to be…pretty intense."

Bob sighed heavily and let his forehead thunk on Harry's shoulder. "You have no idea. Or then again, maybe you do; you seem to grasp the situation very well, which surprises me not at all, it being a matter of empathy." Bob lifted his head and grinned briefly. "Please excuse my sugary compliments. Can you imagine how they sound in Middle English?"

Harry laughed a little, but once again the motion played up their states of arousal, and Harry squeezed Bob around the ribs again. "We'll do whatever, or not do whatever. We already know you can get hard, that's definitely a good sign."

"Yes, and not one I was looking for, frankly. Though--since as you said, I am enjoying the luxury of your…um, endocrine system--"

"Bob…it's okay. If I end up just taking myself in hand instead because it's all getting a little too much for you, maybe you could…um…stay with me. Unless you were feeling too uncool by then, didn't want to, that'd be okay, too."

Bob's eyes glittered. "I suppose we could see." He didn't look like that idea discomfited him.

Harry smiled. "Wanna lose the pants?"

The pajama bottoms they were both wearing were suddenly gone. So were their shorts.

Harry blinked. "Uh, that's handy."

Bob ducked his head. "I'm sorry. I'm used to operating as a ghost, a sorcerer, anything whose interactions with the 'solid' world are an optional consideration. Here, it's…somewhat similar."

"It's okay. Here…" He used the newly afforded opportunity to stroke as far as he could down Bob's back, over his ass--how old had Bob been when he was murdered? His body was hard, and in the light Harry could see cuts of muscle; Bob had not ignored his physical person as some wizards did. He slid his hands down and back up, then let them move in slow, spiral patterns over all the skin he could reach, stroking his hair, touching his cheekbone. The expression on Bob's face, his eyes closed, was almost ecstatic. "Kiss me again," Harry invited, smiling.

Bob did, and this time their lips clung, longer, still longer, and then Bob leaned down and applied the gentlest of pressure, and Harry made a whimpering noise and opened his mouth more. Bob shivered. He kept probing Harry's mouth, carefully, caressingly, but curiously as well. Harry was in the mood to be cooperative even if it hadn't been Bob's first real kiss in centuries, but he let Bob do what he wanted, responding enough to demonstrate his own interest, to give a little back to Bob, but not to take over.

Harry realized that as much as he liked where he was right now, and as much as Bob liked the touching Harry was doing, it might be easier for Bob to do his thing if he were on the bottom--his hands would be desperate to touch too--so he gathered himself and Bob and rolled them over, and cradled Bob's head in his hands, kissing him deeply, gently, reassuring. As Harry had figured, Bob's hands were immediately all over him, in hungry fascination; and they were both rocking their hips, lifting and pressing. It'd been a long time since Harry came that way, but hell, it felt good, and it'd probably give Bob the least post-sex weirdness feeling. He thought he'd need to try to make sure Bob knew how much Harry was enjoying this, but that turned out not to be the problem. Trying not to eat Bob alive, even as sleepily sensual as Harry was feeling, was the catch. He kept wanting to loosely bury his teeth in something. Arm, shoulder, neck…

It wasn't hard to tell when Bob was getting close; he broke their frantic, clinging kisses--though obviously unwillingly--and his head rolled back, his neck stretching slowly, turning from side to side as he moaned, eyes closed. Harry took a bit just above the nape of Bob's neck in his teeth and applied gentle suction, reaching down between them to take Bob in his hand.

Bob convulsed, almost throwing Harry off, as Harry fought for balance and kept it, and stayed with it, stayed with him, until Bob's arms around his back and his slowing shuddering, accompanied by soft panting, told him it was time to let up.

He lifted himself on his elbows and turned Bob's face towards him. Tears were running out of the ice blue eyes, closed now, down his temples.

"Baby, it's okay. Look at me."

Bob's eyes blinked open, bleary and wet. "I love you, Harry." His ghostly white lashes were darkened and spiky with tears, sparkly, tiny glints, shimmering droplets.

"I love you, too," Harry whispered back, and kissed him, warm and firm and real, dream or no dream. "I have forever. And even as pissed as I've been at you sometimes, I can't imagine that ever changing."

"Harry…" Bob barely whispered, pulling him tight.

They lay like that, but Harry was still moving slowly against Bob, unable to help it, though not really trying to stop it.

Bob let him move enough to be able to unwind one arm, saying "Shall I?"

"Are you sure?" But Harry was panting, and Bob's soft smile said he knew a pro-forma question when he heard one.

"I doubt it'll take long, my darling." Bob mouthed and tongued gently at his ear, and Harry discovered he really loved that when it was done that well.

Bob was right, it didn't take long; but Harry was too busy coming, and hanging on to Bob and thinking in disjointed fragments how he didn't believe this, to be embarrassed, or he would have been, both at the speed of his reaction to Bob's touch and the wild strength of it.

"Oh, God," he whimpered, and Bob held him up, supporting his head with a shoulder, and rescued one of the pillows from the foot of the bed with the other arm. Harry could only lie there and pant.

"You are the most beautiful man I've ever seen," Bob whispered, tucking and arranging the pillow for them. Harry was using Bob as a headrest.

Harry was too out of breath to laugh, managed a couple of hacking noises lieu of it, and said "In all the time you been around--an' you were about twenty years older'n me when you…died--and the best you done guy-wise is me?"

"I didn't quite say that. I said I'd never even seen a man quite like you," Bob corrected him in an understated murmur, resting the side of his face on Harry's head. Then he clasped his hands behind Harry, just at his tailbone, holding him steady, and rocking him gently. Harry just curled around Bob, one leg hooked behind both the other man's, and hung on, and breathed.

"Half the time, I'd kill you if you weren't dead," Harry mumbled.

A low laugh vibrated from deep in Bob's chest, almost soundless. "Why do you think I say half the things I do?"

"Maybe I'll sell your skull to a curiosity shop."

"Oh, maybe you'll decide to bungee jump off the bedroom loft."

"Maybe I will."

"Maybe you'll have another go at those deep-fried crickets the Japanese lass you had over for dinner made for you. Didn't she leave you the recipe, after you succumbed to that unfortunate attack of stomach flu when you realized what she was cooking?"

"It was after I'd tried it and actually thought it was pretty good. 'Til I finally understood the word 'cricket'. And I was so proud of how I was doin' with my Japanese. Bob, your pillow talk sucks."

"You started it. And she was a very lovely girl."

"Yeah, and smart, too. But too Japanese. She made me feel like a big honkin' gaijin water buffalo. I like women who are as uncouth as me on occasion; I don't feel so guilty that way."

"I hope you'll not insist they go so far as to blow their noses on their dirty undergarments."

"That is a perfectly reasonable way to save on kleenex considering they're only going to the washer anyway and your pillow talk STINKS, Bob!" He was laughing, though, and Bob was, too. "You're coming up with this stuff on purpose!"

"I like hearing you laugh?"

"You like seeing me squirm."

"Yes. In several ways."

"Um…Bob, if this is a dream…"

"Yes?" Bob kissed his head and petted his hair.

"We could have any kind of recovery time we wanted, couldn't we?"

Bob began to giggle helplessly. "Anything you like, my darling," he sighed. "Anything at all, for you."

* * *

Harry espied Bob at the end of the bed, smiled blearily, rolled over to sit up, and really wished he hadn't. "Oh, wow. Hi. I love you, but igh."

"I can imagine. It was many years before even the time of my execution that that sort of thing happened regularly, but…" He smiled, to Harry's relief. "Last night emphatically brought back many memories. I'd fetch you a hot towel if I could."

"Thanks for the thought. Eesh." Harry fell to his back again. "I think I came every time you did, too, which I'm not complaining about, but man. I gotta start wearing sweatpants to bed."

"The washing-up is a chore I'd gladly share with you."

"I know, baby," Harry said softly, with a sympathetic look at Bob, who was standing near the bed, looking prim as usual, but with a soft smile that reached his eyes, and an amused tilt to his head. The amusement, Harry could tell, was at the mixed blessings of living in a male body, not at Harry personally.

Harry grunted as he sat up, all the dried places pulling, some at hair he hadn't been aware he had. "Could you do a walkaround while I…" he made vague gestures at his person and Bob nodded, vanishing in a gleam of scarlet, black-damson unsmoke, and coruscant gold. Harry'd never thought of Bob's appearance when forming or unforming his light-reflecting body as pretty, before. At first it had been alarming, then commonplace. When had he begun to notice the beauty in it? He was pretty sure it was before they'd made love last night.

While showering, Harry heard a fading, then resurging sound--it was mellow and not alarming, so he just stood there, puzzled and dripping, until he realized it was Bob…singing. And he wasn't belting sixteenth-century show tunes, either, but it wasn't until Bob got to the line "Stars fading, but I linger on, dear" that Harry recognized the song and nearly collapsed laughing to the floor of the shower. Bob was singing "Dream a Little Dream of Me". Bob's twisted sense of humour, Harry giggled to himself, but…

No, it wasn't that. Hrothbert of Bainbridge, you old softy. Of all the songs that might have had more impact for him, he'd thought first of one that would mean something to Harry. Okay, his timing was a little off. He had a lot of decades to keep track of.

What a hell of a velvety, flexible baritone. Why a sexy voice had been considered something a ghost would need he didn't know; he supposed that probably Bob had just been left with the voice he had for the convenience of the sorcerers he would "assist". Sorcerers such as Bob tended to train their voices for sonorousness, for solemn intoning, not to entertain; but Bob'd had a long time to explore every aspect of himself that he'd been left with, so now Harry was wondering why he'd never heard Bob sing before.

Bob was waiting, as usual, when Harry stepped dripping from the shower, to report on the noncorporeal happenings, if any, about the premises over the course of the night. "Everything copacetic?" Harry asked.

"All is shipshape. I had to reset one of the pest wards."

"Mice?" The pest wards were seldom disturbed, because all they did was make potential pests--roaches included, which took some work in Chicago--either think or react, depending on whether there were a brain involved, that there wasn't anything interesting here. Potentially invasive critters would wander away again.

"No, someone's hearth-imp had taken refuge. Apparently it'd got lost when its family moved, and I had to set the poor creature on the right track--it was hiding in the fireplace, naturally, hobgoblins always seek shelter near a hob if they can find one."

"Think it'll be okay? I could take it home. If its family needs it, they might get into some trouble if it doesn't make it back."

"It was just a bit turned around. Its family's up the street; it got confused in the carrying on when the moving van arrived--the new house probably doesn't have a fireplace, and it panicked a bit. I'm sure it'll be fine." Bob was eyeing him--subtly, but all over--as he spoke, smiling just slightly.

Harry began a slow smile, too. "You're staring." Bob had seen him naked a million times, and at all stages of his development disincluding infancy, but the ghost was definitely teasing now.

Bob's eyebrow lifted. "You're attractive," he countered, valiantly trying not to smirk.

Harry sighed and threw his towel through Bob. "It's not fair. I can't stare at you."

"Well, you can…but yes, I know what you mean. I have some power to alter my appearance in accordance with the times and the situation--the need for that was anticipated--but I'm afraid either this or a few things very like it are as close as I can come to anything that would pass if I were inadvertently seen, unless I'm doing a reading; and then I require a source. And really, you wouldn't want me wandering the area naked anyway, would you?"

"Yes."

"Harry!"

Harry laughed and got into his shorts. "Can you still wear the sort of stuff you did when you were first…when you became a ghost?"

"There are a number of such things I can manifest, though I've never had any reason to, once they become…well, something that might actually make me look like a ghost, or at least hopelessly behind the fashion of the times, if I'm seen by the uninitiated. In any case, it would make me stand out, which is supposed to be against the rules."

"Can I see?"

Bob blinked owlishly at him. "Right now?"

"Uh, yeah, lemme brush my teeth and stuff…"

Bob gleamed and glimmered away, and when Harry arrived in the kitchen, he discovered that Bob had mastered the art of activating simple electrical switches--though the effort of interrupting household current in the precise fashion necessary had left him a bit shadowy--and the oven was warm and the prefilled coffee maker on. "Hey," he said, grinning, "this is new. Was it hard?"

"Harder than I thought it'd be, to be perfectly honest, but I'll be recovered shortly. I think it'll just take some practice."

Harry busied himself buttering bread and putting it in the oven as the coffee maker gurgled. He opened the fridge door for the milk and asked "Say…why haven't I ever heard you sing before?"

Bob blinked. "I'd had no reason?"

"Never?"

Bob looked thoughtful. "I've had reason to be…glad, or relieved, or comforted, or pleased…" he paused and added with a short bow and smile to Harry, "…much of it since I've known you, my darling, in one capacity or another. But…happy--that hasn't been part of my…death, at all, really. Serving you was the closest I ever came to it. Now…I honestly am not sure how to describe…" Bob looked pensive.

"Hey, buddy--it's okay, baby, really. Don't stress out about pinning stuff down, I just wanted to say that it's, your voice I mean, y'know, good. Doesn't suck."

Bob glanced up at him, eyebrows lifting. "Really?"

"Yeah, yeah, I mean--I like it okay. I…ah, screw it. I love your voice, Bob, I always have, even, you know, before."

"Before?" Bob moved a bit closer to where Harry was setting things on the table.

Harry talked without looking at him. "The…the sound of it meant…everything was okay, even if…if things were…pretty scary, and even if I couldn't see you--if I could hear your voice…" he smiled a little to himself. "Or touch your skull."

Bob said nothing, but his eyes glistened suspiciously. Blonds had an awful time with that being so obvious, Harry thought absently. "And I still love your voice, and the things you can do with it, even though I also hate some of the other stuff you can do with it--"

"Now, Harry," Bob chided in his smooth scold, and before Harry could respond he saw the expression on Bob's face, and only grinned.

"And let's not even get into what you actually say sometimes--but your singing--what I've heard of it is beautiful. And I've hardly heard anything, except that that's a hell of an octave reach in 'Dream a Little Dream'."

Bob smiled very slowly, bashful. "I think there's no denying that that was a compliment."

"I didn't know you were a Mamas and Papas fan, though."

They smiled stupidly at each other, sharing the joke. What the hell did you do on first-morning-afters when you couldn't touch? This, apparently.

"Cass Elliot did that song after the group broke up," Bob finally informed him, wandering toward the fireplace.

"Figures you'd know that."

"I know everything."

"You sure do." As Bob did a neat pirouette, hands clasped behind his back, to face him again, they grinned another communal stupid grin until the bread started to get aromatic, and then Harry became very busy getting the hot toast out of the oven before he ended up having to scrape the burnt crap off it into the sink.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the characters and I don't own this story.

**_LOUD AND CLEAR! I DO NOT, HAVE NOT AND WILL NOT EVER OWN THIS STORY!_**

**This story is the property of Tang Guangzhen who was kind enough to give me permission to post this here. Any flames about that will be used to fry your ass.**

**Thank You**

* * *

"Okay, it's…Mars, right? Mars the twenty-ninth, Wednesday." 

"On the Julian calendar, yes, we've got that bit. And the day of the week Mercury rules."

"Why do they care? They act like Neptune isn't even out there, much less anything else, but we know better now."

"Why's not important; what's important is we need their help. I suppose the point is that the unaided human eye can't see them, so they don't matter in terms of the routes of the celestia."

"So…we want it, we ask them nice, right?"

"Just so, my darling," Bob murmured in his ear, leaning over behind Harry to watch what he was doing--namely, fooling in a compartmented trunk filled with various stacks of different sizes of vellum sheets, parchment rolls, and other materials. Bob's habit of leaning over Harry because he couldn't pick up a writing instrument himself, which had driven Harry so crazy for so long, was now driving him crazy for different reasons. It had been a long dry spell, both emotionally and physically, since Tara the lying Bob-thief did not, in his book, count. The disappointment and loss had killed any benefit her brief company might have been to him. Though she sure hadn't deserved to get killed for mere theft, no more of an idea than she could have had as to what was happening.

Harry, bent over the table the trunk was beside, with the Julian calendar cross-referenced with the Georgian calendar, the sigils of the Table of Practice of the Ars Pauline, and various different sorts of pens, inks, squares of thinnest glove leather, and a bunch of the other stuff Bob kept telling him to go get while he was trying to get this figured, situating the sigils more exactly and weighting them with neutral pebbles (you had to watch which innocent-looking rocks you picked up outside and used in a magician's lab), because he refused to paint them on the table. There wasn't room in here for more than a couple of dedicated tables, and besides, those sigils were complex. You fuck one up and don't notice, there goes the whole table, and you gotta sand. It was a good thing he had a trunkful of these things already inked; they were complex as anything you'd find in the Lemegeton Clavicula Salmonis. "And sunset was when…"

"It was at seven-twelve."

"So then…we're coming up on the second hour of the night…it's Wednesday…we said that already, damn, I hate this system."

"It's aggravating, yes, but many of the spirits it calls are connected too firmly with the millenia of human ideas about the planets and days and times of day and such to argue with them, spectacularly wrong and certainly inefficient though they certainly are in many particulars. Also, our understanding is distorted by multiple translations, which is always a bit less than no help at all. But many of the quote angelic unquote crowd are easygoing--or, at worst, a bit patronizing--and Tameriel likes humans. She's a Duke, call her 'your grace.'"

"Should I speak Enochian?"

"Good night, no you shouldn't." Bob covered a broad smirk with one hand. "I'll explain why later."

"Later? Why not--"

"Let's leave it at the fact that I'm not the only noncorporeal entity with a strange sense of humor."

"Oh my G--you knew Pandragoz, you probably knew Dee and his pet medium--you did have something to do with--"

"Now, now, Harry, concentration is the very essence of wizardry. Besides, I'd rather tell you when I've the time to make it a better story. All right…the hour of the night is Panezur, and it's ruled by Tartys, Tameriel's boss." He pointed at a sigil. "There's the--no, blast it, that's Sabrathan's for Omarharien. Bloody hell, Harry, I think I'm getting old. Just there--" he pointed again, and Harry grabbed from the carefully clamped-together sheets of vellum and parchment. "All right, that one is Tartys's, put that on the table…it's almost easier to burn them and redraw them at need, as some younger wizards with good hands do, especially no more often than most of us need them."

"Yeah. This way, unless your hobby is inventing new and even more fascinating filing systems, you end up with what looks like a stack of shoeboxes at tax time. I'm not gonna have to listen to you bitch about my handwriting again, am I?"

"Of course not--oh, hold on a moment." Bob shook all over slightly, with the alteration of his appearance rolling up from the floor as it usually did. He appeared in a pair of short, cuffed black leather boots, glimmering translucent dove-grey stockings that clung to the wiry lines of his legs, and black velvet flat-pleated knee britches that closed above the swell of his calf muscle with bright silver buckles. A black roughout leather vest that laced more tightly as it neared his waist, and a full-sleeved, pearl-grey shirt with a lace-bordered wrap at the throat appeared next; the shirt's sleeves gathered into long cuffs sporting at least six black pearl buttons lined up along his wrists. The same sort of pearls gleamed in the lace at the throat, decorating the ends of the ties at the top and bottom of the vest's lacings. His hair was a bit longer, the curl more a wave, also swept back.

God damn.

He dropped his plumed hat carelessly to the cabinet behind him, raising a little cloud of shimmering gold particles, as he turned back to the table, pulling off a pair of loose, cuffed suede riding gloves the same color as the hat, also embroidered with dark seed pearls. "Sorry, nearly forgot, I think this is what I was wearing when I last saw Tameriel. Unless it was the monk's robe. Damn and blast, which was it? This or the robe…"

"Bob." Harry blinked, then blinked again. "Bob. Shit."

Bob frowned. "What now? If we don't get this done, we'll miss Tameriel and have to wait until next week to speak with her again. Or talk to someone else in this system pantheon with whom I'm still in good odor, but Tameriel and I are on excellent terms; she's quite biddable and pleasant, and she knows a good few in the eudaemon crowd."

"You look incredible."

Bob glanced down. "Oh. I, uhm. Well, I am glad you like it, really, but it's the same thing I wore every day for about…oh, forty years or so, I think. It's French, of all bloody things. You see, one of my masters was--"

"Bob, I could fuck you to death right now. Me dying, I mean. I'm not kidding!"

Bob stared, then began to smile, looking abashed. "Oh. So, you mean you…really like it."

"Bob, please. The monk's robe, the suit, anything, but not that, Tameriel will still know you without it. I could cut diamonds over here." Harry leaned against the wall, bending carefully at the torso.

"I'm sorry, my darling," Bob muttered quickly, obviously getting hold of whatever a ghost has to get hold of, and in a moment he said "All right."

With a whimper at the ready, Harry opened his eyes, and Bob stood there in a long black robe with a hood, currently mostly pulled back. He'd probably had at least one master in a high position in the church; ceremonial magic of various sorts had been popular in the Catholic church since its inception. As for a monk's robe, access to some of those old monasteries with their hidden rooms and false floors, with the ability to ask for directions and assistance available, would probably have been helpful; monks may have been the lowest of the low in the heirarchy, but they were also well-nigh invisible, even when they weren't.

Harry distracted himself with that kind of thought while he willed his erection down; he could do that, but it wasn't fun. Especially since the monk's robe was black, not brown, belted with a heavy black cord, and Bob didn't look bad at all in it. Damn. That ass was just amazing. "Well, you still look kinda hot, but I think I can handle it."

"I will never understand how a man as incredibly attractive as you can find me so physically appealing, but I'm certainly not going to argue with it. All right, getting back to the Table of Practice…oh, no, you didn't misspell 'Adonai' again, did you?"

"No, I did not, it's the candlelight. But feel free to double-check the sigils, that's only common sense."

"Right, and I can do it a bit more quickly, so I suggest you see if everything else is ready…good choice on the azure chalk for the heptagram. Tameriel will like that."

"Should I decorate the points? Littler stars?"

"Oh, not if you don't wish. This is supposed to be a friendly invitation to ask for a small favor that we're willing to grant something in return for, not a serious kiss-up session. Don't say it, you naughty creature." But Bob's smirk was nothing short of adoring as he glanced briefly up from the table at Harry.

"We're disgusting," Harry noted, shrugging, and cackling softly.

"Most new lovers are," Bob muttered philosophically, returning his attention to the sigils. Then he checked the clock. "Oh, bloody hell--we've only fourteen minutes left in the hour; she'll be annoyed. But she'll at least come back next week, if nothing else--calm, calm, perhaps she'll be in a good mood. Come and do the conjuration, now, I'll stand ready to greet her."

"Why don't you do the conjuration? I sound like a guy tryin' to do a funny accent through negative-pressure in his sinuses. With a noose around his neck. When you do this, you sound…wow, grand."

"You are a flatterer, and I love you for it, but it's your spell. Come along now, before one of us throws up on the Seals on the Table of Practice."

Bob was right, the two of them were sickening, but that'd wear off soon, and it wasn't as though they could nauseate anyone else, since Harry couldn't tell people the new man in his life was a dead guy. Guy, fine, considering the crowd he hung out with, when he did. Dead guy, not so good. Or in the case of the Council and certain others, the dead guy. Hrothbert of Bainbridge. Aka "Bob", aka "The Skull".

"Harry?"

"Yeah, I'm on it. Okay, let's light this puppy up." He held up a hand and his staff/hockey stick flew lightly into his palm; he closed his fingers around it as the laboratory began to glow, with sigils, artifacts, reacting magical experiments (though anything that might have its results ruined had been moved), other human-made devices (a lot of them made by Harry), all beginning to shine in their distinctive patterns of enteric, odylic, _n_-space channeled power and plain old electromagnetic energy.

Bob strolled over to the heptagram and waited, hands folded neatly behind his back; the bell-like sleeves of the robe fell to cover his hands, and a bit farther. Harry was sort of glad about that, 'cause damn he looked good in that getup, and Harry didn't want to be distracted by Bob's ass and end up calling someone from the Goetia like Marchiosas, who usually showed up with a wolf's head and a serpent tail and vomiting fire and seeing no good reason not to kill you, since hey, you rang, right? You didn't summon anybody from the Goetia into a heptagram.

Harry always felt a little stupid conjuring with anything from the Lemegeton, because it made him talk funny when the conjuration was spelled wrong. He couldn't explain it, but he'd try to pronounce it like it was spelled, and he sounded like a warped cassette tape. Bob said he was paranoid and imagining things, but Harry knew better.

There was a muted glow of gold inside the heptagram, and it coalesced into an olive-skinned, dark-blond person about the same size as Murphy. It could've been a woman or a very young man. The hair was curly and so all over the place it hid some of the indicators, like jaw roundness and Adam's apple prominence.

"Bob! I was all set to be annoyed. How nice to--could you open this thing?"

"Yeah, I'll get that," Harry said, moving forward quickly and messing up the heptagram's edge so Tameriel could get out. The flowing floor-length tunic with long, full sleeves--probably made of "white samite" whatever the heck that was--was cut so loose it wasn't much help either. But Tameriel was still very nice to look at, and seemed friendly enough. "Is this your new, uh--"

"I serve Harry gladly, Tammy. I'm an…assistant. I even had the wizardly training of him."

Tammy plopped onto a bench, large grey eyes beaming out of a heart-shaped face as she smiled. "Lucky you, Harry. By now this human must know just about everything humans can. Like that time when you--"

"Tammy, we'll have to get together later and reminisce, but I really didn't drag you here with a summons just because I wanted to chat; that would've been rude, now, wouldn't it?"

"Not if you couldn't get through my service." Tameriel made a face, rolling her/his eyes at the ceiling.

Bob chuckled. "Really, it's for Harry; all we need is to have you set help us set up a meeting."

"Ah, that's why you called on Wednesday. Okay, we'll rain-check lunch. That'll be my tit-for-tat, by the way. I've been simply perishing for a pierogi."

Harry grinned. "I know just the place. They serve Wyborowa vodka, too."

Tammy actually clapped her hands. "Great! If I make it after my shift, say, a week, that be okay?"

"We'll be certain to leave that open," Bob assured her/him, giving Harry a comradely pound on the back. Harry coughed and nodded, baring a few teeth in a weak smile. He hated drinking any time before about eleven at night, but the pierogis were nothing without the Wyborowa.

"Okay, who would you like me to set you up with?"

"That's just it--we're not sure." Bob related the story of Ancient Mai and her enemy, the otherside darkness, and Harry's desperate ploy to kill the Drake, revive Mai and get them all out of there. And Bob's even more desperate stroll through the darkness.

Tammy stared. "BOB! You might not've made it back, if you ran into--"

"What?" Harry expostulated--he'd heard Bob say, when he got back, that there were things in that darkness that loved him, specifically, not at all for the way they'd been used when he was still alive. What he hadn't known was that, though Bob was already dead, they could still hurt Bob, not just upset him.

"You didn't say--"

"I wasn't sure, and that's the truth. It's too late now, Harry, and we're both heartily sick of the whole thing, so let's move along. Harry wants help with the sorts of wards and spells that handle cacodaemons, since he figures they're they closest thing to a Drake he's going to find any actual literature or know-how about. Agathadaemons aren't much help, usually, they're often a bit pie-eyed, hazard of their background, I suppose. But if you knew any eudaemons--"

"I know the perfect guy. But he'll want a lot more than lunch out of it."

"He'll probably deserve more than lunch. What's his name?"

"The problem is he's a genius locus. You'll have to go to him, and I hesitate to think what he might want as a favor. I mean, he won't count risking death by O'Hare flight path to be much of a favor as far as he's concerned."

"Where is he?"

"In Greece, unsurprisingly. The Acropolis. He used to be Socrates' daimonium."

"I didn't know Socrates had a daimonium," Harry muttered, scratching his head. "You mean he wasn't that smart all by himself?"

"Nah, that little guy invented the whole concept of Socratic argument. He ghost-wrote all his best--uh, sorry…"

"Never mind, your grace, I'm used to it. And you think this daimonium..."

"He's not a eudaemon, he's neutral, but he's usually fond of humans, and he'd love to see some people he could talk with by now, I know it--uh oh, what'd you do, argue about the damn Seals until my hour was almost up?" Tammy was up and back to the heptagram, bouncing--not even that proved anything as far as sex--in impatience. "Fix it and send me back!"

"Right, right--" Harry scurried up with the chalk. "Glad to, and I'm lookin' forward to lunch."

He fixed the seven-pointed star, backed up with Bob, intoned mightily while Bob toodled his fingers at Tameriel with a little grin, which she returned, and Tameriel, Duke of the Second Hour of Night, glowed again and vanished.

"A daimonium!?" Harry expostulated, rounding at once on Bob; who simply let his eyes close and his expression tense, slowly lowering his head as he shook it slightly. "What the hell are we gonna do against Drakes with a daimonium?" A daimonium, was, basically, a very small daemon.

"That daimonium is apparently the personage who made Socrates look so terribly smart. It's undoubtedly what he can tell us, not what he can do personally, that Tameriel believes will be of help."

"Now we gotta go to Greece."

"Greece is beautiful."

"I know, I like it there. It's just getting your skull around, and I hate taking it into the heat, Bob, I worry about it."

"At least we're not taking it into the cold. We can take my skull in the passenger cabin overhead compartment, not in pressurized freight."

"Think we can?"

"I know we can. Fooling an X-ray machine is simply a matter of modifying electromagnetic energy, and you've done that since you were a child. In any event, as you've said before, it's not illegal to carry a human skull on an international flight. It's simply a very great pain in the neck."

"Yeah," Harry sighed. "I love you and if you get hurt I'll kill you."

"Harry, if I get hurt, I'll kill you, too. Feel better?"

Harry's full lips twisted wryly. "Much."

* * *

"This had better work."

"It will work," Bob sighed, and Harry just knew he was rolling his eyes, though he couldn't see in the dimness. "I have every confidence in you."

"Okay, just gimmie a little quiet here," Harry said, "and keep a sharp eye on that invisibility shield. It was hard enough arranging the power failure; I didn't have much left for the shield. Damn. And I didn't even know they lit the Acropolis at night."

"I didn't either. It's terribly gauche, isn't it? I don't know if they do it every night, though I would imagine it would make little difference at this point, at least to them. Once you blew their entire fuse board, they were out of business for a while. An explosion worthy of your talents, my darling. We'll have to come up with some word for that."

"If they don't light it every night, then I guess we just got lucky, huh?"

"No, if we were lucky you would be dreaming of things neither of us wanted to wake up from."

"True," Harry smiled, continuing to draw chalk figures, words, and sigils on the stone. They had set up in the remains of the old(er) temple of Athena, the one that had been destroyed by the Persians; Harry felt less like a vandal making chalk sigils and such on something that'd already been completely kicked to a pizza by Indo-Aryans in 480 B.C. E. Also, it was in a good cause. Beyond dealing with the Drakes, some genii loci wanted to be where they were; some, however, were unwillingly bound for no good reason. Bob's location of entrapment, for example, was mobile, but he was still bound to it. No telling with Socrates' daimonium until they talked to the little critter.

He put his dark green chalk down and started rummaging in his bag, first taking Bob's skull out, wrapped as it was in a baby blanket, then in a thick tapestry-like hunk of old bedspread, and tied securely.

Bob considered it as Harry rooted in his pack. "You know, along with the extra wards we placed on it…sometimes the simplest methods are still the best."

"Just be ready to yell loud if you feel anything starting to happen to it, okay?"

"I don't have to be ready. I assure you, there will be a veritable opera chorus's worth of noise if anything happens to it."

"Good enough. Here, wait." Harry left the area of the conjuration he was readying, moved the skull farther back and braced it in its padding between a couple of rocks and a flat slab of it that lay across the top, forming a Stonehenge-like lentil.

"Harry, I'm touched by your concern, but you're also starting to make me nervous."

"I know how well that thing is already protected, okay? It's just…I gotta do a language spell and I hate those things. Nervous here myself."

"You never did get used to them," Bob sighed. "The disadvantages of being raised in a country larger than all western Europe where only one language is commonly spoken. Very well; steady on, my darling. I'll help you."

"I'd call you a big fat snot for that, but I think you're right. Yank kids are at a disadvantage that way. The canucks at least get some French. A little, anyway, depending. Okay, I hope you're still good with ancient Greek."

"One needn't be too fluent for the translation mechanisms to work; though I'm fluent enough for this. I used it in my work often enough. Daemon or daimon--with an e or an i--are used these days to distinguish the creatures from the modern western connotation of what 'demon' generally means to the various patriarchal religions, but it's actually a Latinization of the Greek "δαιμων" which is the form I'll be using to--"

"I gotcha," Harry said, taking fast little backward steps while bent double to finish drawing the last line of a large figure on the stone. "Okay, take a look over. Tell me if that does it."

"Please remember that I do not know everything."

"I know that, Bob. I just mean check me."

"I know…but the occasions of my not knowing something crucial--often something that might have saved you certain discomfort--are embarassingly myriad." He sighed, then pulled himself together, glancing around. "But it doesn't matter in this case. I… might not have set it up quite this way, but you have your own style, which I'm coming to appreciate more all the time." He gave Harry an unguarded smile, which caused Harry to get a big stupid grin and start experiencing a blood rush where he didn't need one right now.

"Stop lookin' at me like that, I gotta do this. Well, we gotta do this."

"You're very lovely. How do you cope when people give you appreciative looks when you go out?"

Harry gave him a half-ticked, half-adoring look. "For one, I'm not all that hot, that's just you thinking so; and two, if I'm not in love with 'em I don't care nearly as much, even if they do look at me twice."

Bob looked wide-eyed for a moment, then smiled, and said softly, "Of course. I stand corrected."

Harry started digging in his bag again. "Oh, don't tell me I forgot the galangal."

"You didn't forget the galangal; I remember reminding you to bring it. You gave me a thin-lipped look, which for you is quite an achievement, and ostentatiously stuffed a packet of it into the herb bag."

"Hm…don't see it. Guess I just gotta dump all this out…" He upended his pack, with an understated roar of falling tools, supplies and other posessions; he was careful, so most of them hit the stone in a single, pack-induced wad, with a few things clinking or bouncing or rolling a few inches away to fall into smaller subdivisions.

"Yes, definitely your own style," Bob muttered.

"Ha! Crammed it in the same rubber band with the Jalap root."

"I'm not sure why you're using Jalap root. It has no connotation of freedom from oppression here."

"I think it does, and I'm putting together the spell. But don't worry, I'm also using Dittany of Crete."

"That'll just assist in calling it and communicating with it."

"It'll assist in us calling it, which, if it's bound, will help unbind it."

"We don't know that it's unwillingly bound."

"Your angel friend said he'd be glad for some decent conversation by now."

"Tameriel is not a mere angelic spirit. She--"

"That why you call her Tammy?" Harry muttered.

"--is a Duke under Tartys, Lord of the Second Hour of the Night, and you'd do well to remember that; she's not some little flitting winged creature. Also, I'm fairly sure she's not eactly a she, but fortunately that doesn't matter when addressing her directly. Now, let's get started, shall we?"

"Let's do that," Harry nodded, put his pack back to something resembling rights, and held his hand out to his staff, which leaped lightly from where it had been leaning, right into his palm.

"Are you sure you want to do it this way?"

"Your Ancient Greek beats mine with a stick. I'll repeat after you whisper it to me."

"Try not to get distracted," Bob murmured, moving over and, with a needless but pretty scattering of coruscant gold, sharing space with Harry.

"I won't get dist…oh. Oh, that feels a lot different when--when we're--oh boy. Okay, I can do this, I can do this, I can do this--schist, I wish just concentrating on your voice helped. Why does everything about you have to be sexy?"

"I'm contrary that way."

"You sure as hell are. Okay, here we go."  
Bob, reading from the scroll and notes that Harry was indicating, began to whisper the words, pausing in grammatically correct places for Harry to speak. They had to take breaks to pile herbs on the brazier in the proper order. This wasn't Harry's little lab burner; this was a portable coal brazier, the square kind that could be used as a fire pit.

Finally Harry scattered a handful of blackthorn powder onto the coals--and they heard a weird yowl from inside the ruin of the Parthenon.

"I think we've got something," Bob murmured. "Try that again."

Harry sprinkled a bit more of the powder, but not much, in case the yowl had been of discomfort. Something hard to pick out in their torches and candles, something that was less a dark mass than an absence of light, seemed to roll--and bounce a bit--down the rubbly steps on their side of the building, looking tiny against its hugeness, toward the place of the old temple where they'd set up.

"What the hell is that?"

"I'm not sure, but if I'm right…try the clover."

"You think it needs a--"

"No, not the red clover, the dried three-leaf."

"Oh. Uh, are you sure?"

"I'm positive."

Harry made a small production out of sighing, but took a small handful of the herb in question and scattered it across the coals.

With a loud POP, an area directly in the middle of the torches that marked the points of the pentagram became darker, fuzzy, and sort of globulous. Flashes of narrow, long, sharp things kept appearing and disappearing--and the thing went boomp on the ground--well, on the flagstones--about which it complained, in a surprisingly deep voice, "In aimn Bande!"

Bob said grimly "That's not a daimonium--well, it is and it isn't. It--"

"Ce he tusa? Cad chuige a bhfuil tu anseo?!" the inhumanly deep voice thrummed. Harry's chest vibrated, but his ears were not overwhelmed.

The creature rolled to its…well, it got upright, anyway; Harry's guess would be that it'd sat up, rather like a cat--it was, in fact, very roughly shaped like a housecat, but vastly bigger. Its head, with shifty but present ears, topped out above Harry's knees. It was of a plumpish shape and the reason it was dark was less because it had dark fur, but that it was--except for its eyes and teeth--a near-absence of light, the undefined fuzziness around its edges suggesting fur. When it moved, things like four (?) catlike legs, and ears, and other such were distinguishable briefly against differing backgrounds, but otherwise, they were an invisible part of the rest of its darkness. Also visible were long, permanently extended claws, something like a giant fisher's. They glinted brightly, silver-colored.

Its eyes were glowing. Red. Long and narrow, seeming a bit large for the face, above the whole length of what would have been the cheekbone--had this been some sort of monstrous cat. There was no iris, no pupil; just the narrow red ovals, emitting crimson light.

It suddenly grinned at him. That head somehow contained teeth like a six-foot pirhana; they gleamed in the lights. They were where a cat's teeth would be in a muzzle, but they could not possibly fit, not the way they were fitting. That was a phenomenon Harry'd seen before. Sometimes it was something to be worried about; sometimes it wasn't. Creatures that existed partially in other dimensions came in all temperaments, but this one--

It got up; they could tell by the shifting of the darkness, the emergence of a…tail…? --and walked forward on four (?) catlike legs. The thing walked right out of the pentagram. Beings were summoned into pentagrams when the summoner was not sure whether the summoned creature might be of an evil nature; evil could not pass a pentagram, and the creature in question would be imprisoned there until the conjuror sent it away again.

This thing only paused, once out of the pentagram, to eye the staff glowing brightly in Harry's hand, and decided to sit down again where it was. "Cad is ainm duit?" it boomed. Its mouth did not move when it talked--or at least, the head-area didn't, and those needle-like silver-white teeth didn't become visible.

Bob stepped away from and out of Harry, moving to avoid Harry's staff, but right on up to the otherworld-catbeast-daimonium-maybe.

"Bob!" Harry hissed desperately. Sometimes he forgot that you had to get to Bob's skull to do him any kind of serious harm. The dreams were increasing that tendency.

"Don't do anything hasty, my darling," Bob said quietly. Then he gave the creature a short bow, and said "Bandia duit."

The big critter froze. "Bandia is Muire duit."

Bob tapped his chest a couple of times. "Hrothbert, of Bainbridge. Nil moran Gaeilge agam--faighim pardun agat."

There was a pause, and the thing replied "Cruachan ata orm."

"Conas ta tu?"

"Ta mo ghoile ag cur orm," the thing replied, crouching low; Harry tensed, but it didn't move after that, merely blinked slowly. "Ba mhor agam e da…ta straif…"

Bob turned. "Harry, quickly, put out the brazier; it's served its purpose, and the blackthorn is making this creature--its name seems to be 'Cruachan'--feel sick."

Harry didn't argue; he just aimed his free hand and said a single two-syllable word, and all the water in the air nearby condensed and splashed like an emptying bucket onto the brazier. Dark, dusty smoke billowed everywhere. He coughed, but fought his way through it to pick up one of the poker tools, and smush it around in the water-mushy brazier contents to subdue any remaining smouldering.

"Go raibh mile maith agat," the creature said, more softly than before (but still booming), in a relieved tone.

"The blackthorn, since that's when we heard the yell."

"Yes; just now he said, I believe, 'a thousand thanks' or something similar. And 'straif' is the Irish word for blackthorn."

"If blackthorn makes it sick, I doubt it's any kind of inimical character; blackthorn's what you make blasting rods and stuff with. That's Irish you two are speaking? I was wondering if you'd held out on me in one of the magical languages."

"Cruachan is speaking Irish. I am speaking Irish of a sort. I'm fluent in Irish from as late as…oh…the early 1700's. Cruachan's version is more recent, possibly because he maintains a resonance with his home's people, that being in his nature as a--"

"But if he's Socrates's daimonium--hang on, why would Socrates have some kind of Irish…Irish spirit--a de Danaan? A sidhe?"

"Cruachan is a hearth imp."

Harry's eyes got big. "What?"

"Have you forgotten the meaning suddenly? A hobgoblin."

"He's a house spirit?" Harry'd only barely gotten used to the idea of a daimonium being any use in their problem.

"Harry! If it helps your American sensibilities any, he's one of the sort who rips malicious intruders to bloody gobbets."

"Oh. Uh. Yeah, I guess--but how did he get here? Does he know where Socrates' daimonium is? It's hard to believe anyone in Tameriel's position could be wrong. Even harder to believe they'd lie."

"I'll try to find out. You get a translation spell going. The languages you want to translate between are both the modern versions of English and Irish, remember."

"I got that. Hang on while I find some things to use as talismans…"

Bob turned back to the displaced hearth imp, who was eyeing them, sitting up again, but not moving otherwise. He tried "Ta rud eiginn cearr." Something is wrong.

"Ta a fhios agam go," Cruachan said. I figured that.

Bob sighed. "This could take a bit."

"Ceart, m'chara." Right-o, pal.

Just then the Acropolis lights started coming back on, a bank here, a floodlight there…shit, car doors, emergency vehicles, megaphoned voices--Harry knew what authorities arriving at a scene sounded like; he'd been either with the authorities or part of the scene often enough. Vehicles with a lot of ground clearance and torque that could climb the hill's roads, and helicopters that could descend to it, were beginning to arrive.

"Gardai!" Cruachan boomed, apparently standing up and looking around. In the light, he kept fading in and out. He looked like he'd be completely invisible in full light, but now was no time to test the theory.

"Harry," Bob said urgently.

Harry just shook his head. "I'm gonna maintain the sheild around us as long as I can. You, uh, Cruachan--come with us? You--us?" He made a gesture of gathering the big hobgoblin toward himself and Bob, then running like hell.

"Cinnte," said the imp, and Bob said "That means he'll run quickly, come with us, or both. Nice body English."

"Cram it, Bob." Harry lifted his staff, and the candles flared up so hard they burned down to puddles, and the puddles to nothing, only char flaking off the untouched flagstones.

Harry already had his pack on his back, Bob's skull in one arm, and his staff in his hand, then paused. "The fucking brazier. I can't carry it and everything else, or destroy it without--I might as well set off a charge of C-4 and find myself wakin' up in three weeks in a prison hospital bed in Eastern Europe someplace."

"Ceard ata cearr?"

"What was that?"

"He wants to know what's wrong," Bob said, and it sounded like Bob would like to know why they weren't just forgetting the damn brazier, too. Occasionally--probably less often than Harry did--Bob forgot that even nonmagical types had something called forensics.

Harry pointed at the brazier, then at the people, shouting to each other, shining lights where there were none yet, climbing through the carefully preserved rubble, taking up positions around certain protected sites so only the authorized could get in to investigate.

Cruachan seemed to flow toward the brazier--and then it was gone. And so were the chalk sigils. This imp had a head on his…he wasn't stupid.

"Cruachan?"

"Togfaidh me fein e. Ca hait? Ca bhfuil do thriall?" The booming voice was disembodied now.

Bob said "All right, that was definitely 'I'll take it myself. Where are we going?'. I'll pick a way; you keep the sheild up. Cruachan will come behind you."

* * *

"When you don't have much in the way of money, it's good to have friends," Harry said, as they paused behind a small plastered building just at the foot of the mountain, down one of the rough sides with no motor access. Helicopter lights were sweeping the area, and the sheild was shaking nearly as hard as Harry was. Bob was present as a small, smoke-and-spark-trailing glare of crimson, popping in every now and then to check on their progress and position while he kept an eye on the surroundings and how populated those might or might not be. Cruachan, interestingly, was easier to guess the dimensions of in the dimness, though not much more easily than in the torchlight. "Cad chuige e sin?" he hissed, sounding like a half-ton serpent-god. Harry was saving wondering why that voice wasn't announcing their presence all over the place until later.

"It's a phone," Harry said, guessing what the, uh, spirit (this had to be the biggest, baddest hearth-imp Harry had ever seen) wanted to know. "Uh, Irish for phone--all I'm getting is the word for television--"

"Phone? Cell phone?"

"Yes! Um--shit, I think there's no word for yes in Irish. Cell phone." He briefly displayed the phone and punched up the number he wanted. "Hang on. You got my brazier, which can be used to get to me, and we still gotta talk to you--yes, Megare! It's me. Yeah, we're here! Come on--"

There was a flare of lights, a familiar squeal of sports tires, and Harry almost didn't get the sheild dropped in time to keep them all from being run over as Megare halted the car right next to Harry in the narrow lane. "Come! You come quick! Sheild car!"

"Yeah, yeah--we got someone else with us!"

"She fit?"

"We think so, but…hell with it, Bob's in his skull now, let's get out of here!"

The door slammed behind Cruachan, startling the hell out of Harry, but apparently not Megare. Her shining-dark-coifed head turned once, examined the scrambling pile of terror and insanity in the back of her Maserati, and nodded; she stomped the gas. The plan was to get them out of sight of habitation while the shield was still up; as near the Acropolis as they'd been, the tourists, who could not see or hear them, were a foot thick on the ground, so avoiding vehicular homicide was all Megare could handle.

Once out of that, no one could see or hear the Maserati, and Megare told Harry to lie off the shield. Megare had equipped the car with various Bondian-Wizard failsafes and alarms for emergencies, for which she apparently felt this qualified, and which were sufficient for deserted highway use. "You are hurt?" she asked, senses apparently flexing. "No, you are tired. You do too much yourself. You have servant, make him do. You have knowledge. Use."

"I can't, Megare," Harry sighed. "I just can't. I'm fighting something I call the Morningway Nasty. My mother tried to defy it and it killed her somehow, I'm sure of it; and it means I've gotta be extra-special careful."

"You are a sweet boy, Harry, is why I love you, but you will kill yourself if everybody who love you so much do not kill you first."

The car pulled up invisibly to a country house, three stories, quite large, but impossible to trace the exact size of in the darkness--much like their guest, Harry supposed. A yawning blackness opened, the headlights vanished, and the car thrummed almost silently into hiding in the underground garage.

Bob zipped out with a shower of gold and reappeared by Megare's door, in the outfit and posture of a valet, bowing to her with a smile.

"You are too charming, my lord of Bainbridge," she purred at him (her 'limited' English to Bob was always much better than her English to Harry).

"I only wish I could truly so function, milady. As Harry said, we have a guest," Bob said, offering his arm; she "took" it, holding her own hand in place over it as they headed for the doors to the house. "I thought I'd better explain, as Harry's a bit…tired and cranky, and our guest seems to have no English. I haven't checked its modern Greek."

"It is like you?"

"Noncorporeal, in part--but not a ghost; it's an Irish house-spirit, I believe."

Her brows rose. "Ooh. I will get translation for it."

"I'm sure it would appreciate that." They glanced back; Harry was following gamely enough, holding the bundle of Bob's skull and his staff/stick; the pack on his back at least wasn't doubling him over, and the imp seemed to be doing a pantechnicon dimensional show, surrounding Harry.

"Our friend seems to be protecting Harry."

"Does not know me. I will tell it who I am inside. Harry help it?"

"Harry apparently freed it. It was trapped as a genius locus at the Acropolis."

"Ah. As I think, what you tell. So far from home. It must say, must say…" Megare had to stop and think sometimes with English, but she also had to do that with Greek. Her accent wasn't anything anyone at all could claim to recognize. It sounded more like Romany than anything else to Bob, but an actual Gypsy witch of Harry's acquaintance--in Basque--knew her too, and said that it was neither Romany nor Eskara.

"There's no more malice in the creature than one finds in an average human, so I can't think that it was bound there so far from home for the most aboveboard of reasons. Harry likely did it a magnificently good turn," Bob said.

Megare laughed as they entered a broad, sunken den, the walls lined with sliding, rotating, and otherwise disappearing books, entertainment equipment, cabinets, a wet bar, and the like; the picture window looked down on part of the hillside and the Mediterranean; the house was built into the cliff, because Megare had built it there. When Harry had seen it first, on his first trip to Europe as a young man--he'd visited many of his uncle's and the Council's associates--he'd exclaimed at how much it must have cost to have done.

"It cost nothing, Harry, nothing but time and energy and the desire to know. I design, I build, I arrange, I let everyone think what they like, I make the papers for the government, I do all that, no one goes without, no one is--exactly--lied to, it is the same as if I beggar myself, spend my whole fortune. Except I spend almost none of my fortune; I simply do the work myself. Is why your uncle wants you to know me, I am sure. I can teach you to get away with anything, but get away with nothing. No one is hurt. You have what you want. He knows that will appeal to you, eh?"

That speech still echoed every now and then in Harry's head, because he knew it was true. When he gave away his uncle's money, he wasn't throwing away his only chance to live on easy street, and that didn't refer to the fact that selling the Morningway house could result in Gods knew what kind of multiple disasters with people bumbling into magical traces, treasures and traps that had been forgotten for generations.

But his only reply to it now was the same one he'd had then. "This is something I need to do, Megare. I need to…be a journeyman, sort of. Whether I have what it takes for more or not, I need to know…I need to know what part of me is in charge. Me, or something else. If it's something else, I'd better find out, don't you think?"

She had sighed but nodded. "You will call me if you need help with this searching for self, Harry my boy," she had said. And then turned and smiled at Bob. "Especially if you find a way, as you say you secretly try, to free this beautiful dead man."

"You will be the first on my list to alert, in the most pleasant way I can think of, milady Megare," Bob had smiled back. Harry had felt vaguely annoyed, but he was only sixteen, and ashamed of having a crush on his tutor/guardian, so kept his mouth shut. Besides, at the moment, it might have been Megare he was annoyed over as well, and wouldn't that have cracked everyone up. He just kept smiling.  
He wasn't smiling a lot at the moment. He had set about unwrapping Bob's skull; when it figured out what was going on, Cruachan, whip-whip-whip, had all the ties undone, the baby blanket swept back, and the skull ceremoniously placed on it in Harry's lap.

"I will make translate, helpful imp," Megare said, applauding softly. "Come with me. I have here." She spun part of the heavy darkwood wall to reveal a number of jewelbox-like containers, all of which glowed red at the lock; she touched a lock, the red glow turned blue, and she opened it, removed a sparkling pentagram with a number of clear stones set in it by the silver chain it hung from, and turned around. Cruachan materialized in his there/not there, huge-black-cattish-thing form, red eyes glowing, and grinned.

Megare only laughed again. "You are a sweet imp! Big teeth! Very cute. Hold still and if you drop it, just to pick it up again," she instructed the shapeshifting creature offhandedly. He nodded--that was easy to see with the eyes and the for godssakes grinning TEETH--and she dropped the pendant over his head. It slid to a stop at his shoulders--for a cat, he had enough shoulders to hold it in place.

"Ah. Yes. Yes? A general affirmative, applicable to all situations. How terribly convenient," said Cruachan. "I will be most careful with your translating talisman, my good wizard. Thank you for the use of it."

"You welcome. Go sit with Harry. He looks very much needing friends. You eat? Drink?"

"In a manner of speaking." Cruachan had zipped back to Harry. "Harry? Your name is Harry?"

"Uh." Harry cuddled the skull; the red glow of the eyes was softly shimmering in foggy light all over it. "Harry Dresden, wizard PI, and I'm a big pu--uh, coward. I've got everything Megare's got, but I don't use it."

She smiled a little, but only said "You have things I do not, and will use them. I did not think to free imp, did not know how. You did."

"I had a selfish reason."

"Whatever your reason, Wizard Dresden, I am grateful. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Cruachan, after the Cave of Cats through which one can enter the Otherworld--the Irish Otherworld, in my homeland. It is in my nature to safeguard a place and its inhabitants from danger."

Harry looked up and smiled. "How come your voice doesn't make the building rock, when I can feel it in my chest and like that?"

"I'm sorry; I don't understand. My voice?"

"We can probably feel his voice in our bodies, my darling, including in your eardrums, but nothing else can," Bob's voice came gently. He sounded purry, unsurprisingly; Harry's fingers were still moving gently round and round over the crown of the skull, his thumbs stroking along the orbits of the eyes.

"Then how do you--oh, your skull."

"Not directly. Cruachan is, of course, aware that I'm capable of vibrating air to make sound and percieving that to hear it, so he vibrates the air for me, too."

"Yes, indeed," Cruachan said. "You were not aware of this about your…servant?"

"Isn't my servant, we fight too much. And bitch too much." Harry grinned as Bob murmured something no one else could hear. Harry went on "Well, technically, maybe thas how we work, an' 'cause there's this bound thing, we can't seem to…" his eyes closed in obvious exhaustion. "Damn, that was some work, I really wasn't looking for it…"

"You should rest. You have performed a far larger working than you intended, and then kept us sheilded from visual or auditory detection in a large crowd for some time. Wizard Megare, is there a place where he may sleep?"

"I will take him," she said sympathetically. She held out an arm and Harry floated slowly up into the air, soft and easy, and began to giggle at the sensation, still hugging Bob in the baby blanket. Megare smiled broadly at that, and said, "We go upstairs. Cruachan the Imp will be here when you wake, yes? You can talk then."

"I'll be here, of course."

"Here we go." Megare walked up the twisting mahogany staircase that thrust out of the side of the paneled wall and then rose into a walled tube built to encase it; Harry and Bob drifted behind. She sang softly, a wordless lullaby, as she climbed. Then she added "You thought you were going to try to free a little daimonium, and look what happens," she sighed. "You do not change."

"He doesn't know about some Irish hobgoblins," Bob explained. "In fact, we didn't know it was a sizeable protector spirit until after we'd freed it. Since we thought it was a small neutral daemon, we summoned it into a pentagram, which severed its tie with the particular location in the Acropolis. Or possibly the whole Acropolis; we didn't get a chance to find out. Nor did we get a chance to restore the damaged portions of the lighting system, which will have Harry mourning tirelessly." Bob sighed. "I can hardly wait."

"In here…" It was a guest room; the large bed turned itself down, and Harry's boots unlaced themselves and slid off his feet, followed by his socks, and, more startlingly, his pants. He squeaked, his eyes opening very briefly in mild alarm.

She took Bob's skull herself and Harry rolled in the air and made soft mumbles while she got him undressed to his undershirt and shorts. "You're very good with visualised dactylation," Bob complimented her.

"I was a very naughty child; it was my favorite game," she explained. Bob chuckled as Harry was deposited on the bed and went out like a light, still giggling, as the covers were pulled up over him. Megare tucked Bob's skull under them in Harry's arm; Harry was facing the interior of the bed, and was a fair distance from the edge. "This is safe enough?"

"It is for now--the skull's significantly preserved and warded; it'd take no damage from a fall onto the carpet. Thank you, milady Megare. I'll come notify you when he wakes, but if you're sleeping yourself, I'm sure Cruachan and I can take fine care of him."

"Then I will show imp where things he need. Watch out for our poor boy who is too good to be good for himself, now."

"That's a very good description of the bothersome little git, milady."

She laughed, her head rolling back, her shining black hair knot wobbling as she left, the door ghosting softly shut behind her, dim gold night lights coming up here and there in the room.


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the characters and I don't own this story.

**_LOUD AND CLEAR! I DO NOT, HAVE NOT AND WILL NOT EVER OWN THIS STORY!_**

**This story is the property of Tang Guangzhen who was kind enough to give me permission to post this here. Any flames about that will be used to fry your ass.**

**Thank You**

* * *

"Easy, there, easy…" 

"Oh…mm." Harry turned a little to the left; he was propped up on Bob again, and Bob had had the foresight to be wearing a thick, cabled cashmere sweater.

"Can I just…go back to wherever I go when I'm asleep but not dreaming?"

"You certainly can, if you feel the need. I'm only here because you seemed to be fighting your way up to the dreaming level. I wanted to…how to put it…"

"Catch me if I fell?" Harry mumbled.

"Something like that, at least. You're very drained, and in a terribly vulnerable condition."

"Then I'm lucky I got you," Harry yawned, getting his left arm around Bob's waist. He didn't know what Bob was leaning against, or where they were, because he hadn't opened his eyes, but he could smell salt, and feel a breeze, and grass…he suspected it was the yew tree Bob was leaning on.

"You're lucky that it's me you've got. Anybody else would seize you like the great mountain of sorcerous resources that you are, if they had you like this in such a condition."

"Bob. Think. Nobody else could get in here."

"Mm. Yes, there is that." Harry felt a kiss on the top of his head and smiled a little.

"I noticed something," Harry murmured.

Bob made an inquiring sound.

"Cruachan understood Megare before she put the translation talisman on him," Harry muttered.

"Yes, I noticed that too," Bob said. "I also noticed that neither of them thought it odd. I have wondered if Megare actually has a native language at all. It is her greatest genius to be able to communicate with absolutely anything. And her name, as near as all my researches have shown, has no demonstratable etymological source."

"I'm not convinced she's a sorceress."

"What do you think she is?"

Harry snuggled against Bob. "I think she's a nymph."

Bob chuckled. "Like a tree nymph?"

"Yeah, maybe. Why not?"

"Why not indeed." Bob was stroking his back, gently. "I think I should let you return to delta, Harry, you--"

"No," Harry bitched, squeezing with the arm around Bob's waist. "Don't. Don't go."

"You're very tired," Bob explained patiently, with exactly the same tone of voice he'd used when Harry was fourteen, and had the flu with a fever of a hundred and four. It was also the tone he'd used when Harry was thirty-two and had an unfortunate reaction to a bottle of less-than-fresh scurvy grass. "You need to rest. You'll feel much, much better afterward."

"Can't you stay with me?" Harry sighed, barely understandable.

"Well…I suppose we could try that. It might be possible, if you were dreaming at a very low level, not high enough for this sophisticated imagery I've been using--just…to feel presence, a simple awareness…"

Nothing upsetting ever happened when Bob was in charge of the dream, so there were no anxiety reactions, no disturbances of the normal brainwave progression, no release of adrenaline and increase of heart rate, nor--if that sort of thing continued--was there any eventual knocking himself out of sleep entirely, also known as being "scared awake". He had supposed the pluses and minuses simply balanced out, but he slept so poorly in general that he'd had to conclude it wasn't his imagination; he slept better with Bob inside his mind, running his dreams for him.

He hoped that feeling alive for those hours--a few a night, having a living body again, or so close to that it didn't matter--was more a reward than a punishment for Bob.

Bob had moved them. Now Harry was in the bedroom; the back-loving mattress was supporting him, and so was Bob. He could feel things, still, in sort of a vague way, every now and then. It might have been frightening if he hadn't known that one, it was sleep-related and wouldn't last long, and two, Bob was monitoring the entire process and would know if Harry became uncomfortable with any part of it, and bring him out of it.

He was getting the powerful feeling he didn't pay Bob enough.

While he still could, he opened his eyes. It was dark in his mental bedroom now; he could see the windows, but no moonlight poured through them, as usually did. "We don't have to talk, until I get my shit together a little better," he slurred. "I just…want to know you're there."

"I'll see what I can do, my darling."

"If you can't, I'll deal. I mean, I can be asleep without you and not freak out, just whatever…works…"

"Shhhh…"

Warm…

There was no time. Harry had heard about time not being real, the jokes about it being something God (or whatever) created so that everything in the universe didn't happen at once.

He'd heard of actual places in the brain that had to do with the perception of time, and if these places became damaged in certain ways, one lost the ability to perceive anything but events--one could not even perceive what order the events occurred in; not because it was impossible, but because it was irrelevant. The universe was a single event, which had started with the big bang. Human beings were only vortices of matter and energy, just like any other subvortex occurring within a larger one, a smaller event set off by a larger event and therefore part of that larger event, meaningless, nonexistent without it.

Time was only something we invented, something like the concept of chaos, to explain connections that were too big for a human perspective to see--there was no such thing as time; there was no such thing as chaos. There were only patterns that humans could not perceive. That did not mean the patterns were not there…

"Harry," warm lips stroked his ear. "Come back. Come up a bit, my darling. Just a bit…that's right…"

He could feel his body. That he'd never stopped feeling Bob's didn't seem strange at all. He opened his eyes, blinking a few times. "Bob."

"You were very deep, but I'm not sure if I can call what you were doing sleeping. I don't think brainwaves go any deeper than delta, but this…"

"I had you. I didn't have to…hang onto the shore," Harry whispered. "I had your hand. You know what? I'm pretty sure I don't pay you enough."

Moonlight, though not as bright as usual, was falling, low and indirect, through the bedroom windows now on the other side of the shifting translucent drapes. "Why are those there? Are there dream mosquitoes?"

Bob chuckled. "You like the motion of bed screening in a breeze from a window. You watch, and it puts you to sleep. It has since your late teens; probably before then, if you'd ever encountered a situation where you needed screening to keep stinging insects off you as you slept."

"You knew that?"

"Yes."

"How do you know something like that about someone when they didn't know it?"

"I've loved you, more and less and in various ways, for over twenty five years, you oblivious prat."

Harry blinked. "Oh. Yeah." He started laughing sosftly, and rolled over and grabbed Bob tight. In doing so, he noticed they weren't wearing anything under the sheet. "Hey, you stole my pants."

"We were never wearing any this evening once we reached the bedroom."

"Oh. Guess I missed that too, huh."

"Your observational skills OH my. Obviously need work."

"I'm working on them as we speak," he said, taking in very carefully the picture Bob was currently presenting. "And planning on another observation."

"Mm. Oh, really? And what…oh, in aimn De…"

"Whether I still remember how to give a decent blow job. I think it's sort of like riding a bicycle, but we're about to find out."

Turned out he remembered everything, remembered what it tasted like, smelled like, felt like; except that this was Bob, who was different from everyone else, because this was a dream and oh yeah, running his tongue down to spread the saltiness, gently supporting with one hand, moving the other hand to see what else might be a welcome distraction during the main--

Holy cow.

Bob groaned and slid his feet flat beneath his knees to lift his hips. Harry quickly went for two fingers and reached deep, searching, finding. He kept forgetting--sure, Bob could make lube and stuff appear miraculously if he wanted to. He could also just miraculously not need it in the first place. Hell, for all Harry knew, he could do that as a ghost, some way or other, or had been able to do it as a sorcerer. Harry'd never been prostate-oriented enough to find out if he could himself, but he knew Bob sure might've.

"Harry WAIT--"

Harry didn't wanna wait, he was gonna come here, this was incredible, but he did wait, panting "Yeah?" in a broken, pathetic voice, having stopped moving his hands, having let Bob's warm, fragrant flesh slide from his lips. This couldn't be a dream. Bob was so warm and soft, soft inside…

"Please," Bob panted, probably not out of reticence--he wasn't a closemouthed guy anywhere else, he probably talked just as much in bed if he had a reason, but at the moment he'd probably forgotten how to speak English just as badly as Harry had. He'd thrown himself over on his front, knees bent, keeping his angry-red erection from contact with the bed.

"Oh God Bob," Harry whispered, his fingers sliding gently, reluctantly out of the warm slick softness, and his arms sliding around Bob's waist. "Just tell me. Anything, however you want--"

"I will, I will, just--ohhhhhh yes--" He sobbed hugely as Harry slid in as slowly as he could manage; then he seemed to get control of his breathing, trembling all over.

Bob didn't have to say anything, give any preferences, at least not at the moment. The general feeling seemed to be "now", and that was what both their bodies were going for.

Oh God. He was pretty sure he was talking. He was whispering, no chest in the sound, saying things like love--he was glad to hear that one showing up a lot--and good, and fuck, and Bob's name, pretty much all the standards. He was so busy going batshit he only had the minimum available necessary for making sure Bob was having just as good a party, but since he was having such a bitch of a time staying where he needed to be--he finally grabbed one of Bob's shoulders so he wouldn't get thrown off--he figured he had to be doing pretty well. That and the fact that Bob also seemed to be hitting on most of the standard favorites, Harry's name, various pre-Christian God-forms, styles of language nobody'd spoken in millenia, things like that--but that was all falling by the wayside as Bob's commentary slowly went unintelligible, into deep, pleading, universal sounds.

Harry'd already been there for a while.

* * *

And the massive orgasms--one right after the other (though they took so long and were so confused in source that "two" was just a guess)--woke him up in the middle of them.

Didn't stop them, of course. He just had time to think Damn it when he realized he could feel Bob's red light, puffs of black/damson smoke and coruscant gold, running all along his jerking, thrashing body--everywhere along it--as he clutched Bob's skull against his chest, on and on.

And then he lay there and breathed a moment, and before he could even really talk right, he said "We are gonna find a way to free you, because we're gonna be able to touch while I'm awake, dammit. I don't wanna deal with getting woken up by the part that's most fun again. That's not usually a problem. Shit."

"Yes, my darling," Bob sighed, his image mere light in most of the appropriate colors, with fantails of coruscants and tumbles of inky damson fog here and there. "I agree. We'll find a way. But in the meantime, there are ways not to be thrown out of the dreamstate like that. We've managed it before."

"I'm not sure if it's possible…ah, schist…with something like…that. I'm not even sure what that was. He sighed. I think I've got enough in the wizardly juice box to clean up the sheets, here. You don't thank someone for getting involved in a nutball plan and saving your ass by jizzing up their stuff."

"I'm glad I taught you that much." Bob appeared next to him on the bed, cross-legged with his chin in one hand, smiling.

Harry laughed. "Wiseass. Hey, did you--in the dream--I mean, I know I, when you, um--"

"Yes," Bob said, with a calming gesture with one hand. "I did. I would not be smiling right now if I hadn't. Your body simply ends up with an extra; it doesn't deprive me. Rather, that's how it would seem from your point of view."

"I like the fact I get to feel you come, too, I don't like it enough to leave you in your skull."

"No, me neither."

"So do you think we--I--yelled enough to alert Megare that we're awake?"

"Ah, my darling, I think that who and whatever Megare is, exactly, she knows sex if she hears it screamed from her guest bedroom, and she will probably refrain from disturbing us for a bit no matter what time it is. It is, however…" he peered around Harry's shoulder. "Three-thirty in the morning, local time."

"I think I've saved the sheets fine. And, uh, my shorts. "

An odd shifting in the air and two long, glowing ovals of red, visible in the very dim gold light of the room, materialized over in front of the door. "Ah! You're done. Good, I didn't wish to interrupt your tryst."

"This is afterglow, Cruachan," Harry sighed, eyes rolling nearly out of their sockets. "Now you're interrupting afterglow. You're a hearth imp, you gotta not be walking in on your family when it's gettin' its rocks off, right?" Of course, with most hearth imps, this was not a problem. It couldn't be a problem. A hobgoblin, as Harry knew hobgoblins, was a little creature roughly the size and shape of a medium sized monkey--monkey, the small guys with long tails, not the great apes like chimpanzees and baboons and humans--and they were invisible to everybody but, well, someone who really wanted to see them for some reason and went to a lot of trouble to do it. Bob could see them and sense them in other ways, and Harry could, but that was their business.

He had never even thought a hearth imp that could probably wreck a thief's car by stepping in front of it as it sped away, then investigate properly to make sure the thief himself was treated for his injuries and properly apprehended, would be possible, let alone there'd be one trapped on the fucking Acropolis. Having a hobgoblin that could literally kill intruders instead of tricking and messing with them until they ran, or at least left the best stuff, or left identifying characteristics (the usual imp methods), was rather like releasing a crackhead silverback gorilla to run loose through the house after dark instead of having a yappy dog and a house alarm.

"Of course," Cruachan said. "I am not usually so verbose, but I do not usually have a translation device that will work for me at my disposal. In any event, I merely wished to learn whether you needed anything. Your brazier, incidentally, is in Wizard Megare's garage. It contains everything that was in or around it when I took custody of it."

"And I ain't about to ask how you did that, 'cause you already scare me."

"A thousand apologies. I have no desire to alarm you. You have freed me."

"Yeah, and now we gotta get you home. We can't leave you runnin' around defending people to death."

Bob said "I should probably warn you that it was the spirit of a house of heroes. Ireland, unfortunately, was full of them. One of the reasons they were able to stay independent for so long when they couldn't form central unions was that attacking warriors would wait for the tribesmen to leave, then go to attack the villages, and the women and children would swarm out of the huts and slaughter them all with kitchen implements and hoes. Irish hearth spirits--and those in some other parts of the world--are…more formidable beings than the hobgoblins you're used to. You'll have to stop acting surprised, or you'll…amuse them. Which is never good, with them."

"Are you sure this isn't the-Irish-are-barbarians talk from an English guy?"

"Harry," Bob scolded.

Harry sighed. "Okay, I get you. I'll stop makin' a big point of it and stuff, I swear."

"And try not to jump ten feet in the air whenever we encounter such a creature. Remember, they regard people like us as friendly--so don't ruin it--unless we demonstrate otherwise. You're a wizard, a magic-working druid; you're a good-luck person, a person to be welcomed. I'm a human spirit whom they can tell is attached to you, and whom they can also tell--they have senses for this, obviously--has no inimical abilities unless you count my sense of humor."

"So, I just gotta be nice to the great huge clawed and toothed and superpowered little hobgoblins, and they'll be nice to me. Bob, ordinarily, in Chicago, you see something like, ah, Cruachan here, and you run or you find out what kills it, real fast."

"That's not true everywhere, and if you really believe it is, then I've neglected your education on that front."

"Though obviously not on others," Cruachan boomed cheerfully. "Congratulations on such extremely powerful orgasms."

"Thank you," Bob said drolly as Harry collapsed backward to his pillow. "We'll make a little stopover after Heathrow," Bob said comfortingly to Harry. "Ireland is lovely, despite the deforestation."

"Stars and fuckin' stones," Harry sighed.

"In the meantime, Harry, you should eat," Bob said, and gave Harry a brisk slap on the thigh through the sheet. "You expended a great deal of energy earlier this evening at the Acropolis, and on the way here. Now that you can stay awake--"

Harry nearly hit the ceiling. ZING! The imp's huge dark presence, flashing teeth and nails and red, red slits-for-eyes, was there and gone again--leaving a laden tray in his lap. It was full of fresh-in-season cheeses, fruits and flatbreads, butter and tomato slices, and various small bottles of oils, along with a bottle of wine and two glasses. "Shit," Harry muttered, carefully transferring the heavy tray from his legs to the mattress proper.

"I can fetch more when you finish with that," the imp offered, having returned to its spot by the door.

"Oh, yes. Megare said she'd show the imp where everything was in case she was asleep when you, or we, woke," Bob remembered.

"You don't have to wait on me, buddy," Harry tried to start, but the imp cut him off with "I owe you a great favor, and as you are going to take me home, I will owe you another. I can hardly repay it all with information about that obnoxious little spirit."

"You did know the daimonium? Socrates' daimonium?"

"Yes," Cruachan said. "I will tell you of the situation while you eat. Fellow spirit, perhaps you could make him eat?"

"Perhaps I could," Bob said, scooting closer, but Harry held up a hand, sighing, and Bob just looked smug as Harry began putting together little flatbread sandwiches.

* * *

Bob had turned the talk to immediate matters to keep Harry from getting involved in a long conversation; Harry'd lasted for about half the spread the imp had brought--and it was quite tasty--but when he couldn't stuff in any more, the imp had removed the tray to the foot of the bed. Bob was considering a snack the next time he dallied in Harry's dreams, Harry was sleeping, and Cruachan was finishing the food.

He didn't exactly eat it, but Bob could easily see that essence had gone out of it. A normal human wouldn't have been able to. That was the problem with food offerings; the food itself inevitably remained there, getting nasty if nobody quietly tossed it out. But by the time it started getting nasty, the part the spirit wanted and could eat--and in most offerings, it had a lot to do with the intent of the person leaving the offering--was already gone.

In this case, it was more like a tastefest. Cruachan had been stuck on that damn overdramatized hill for a long time. He was partying quietly--in more ways than that; Bob had asked him to stop sending his voice to Harry while Harry slept. If Cruachan didn't want you to hear him, you didn't hear him. It was that simple. It was the same for most spirits and all hearth imps.

Bob was shaking his head. "You poor creature."

"I couldn't believe it either," Cruachan boomed sorrowfully to Bob. "I was only a simple hearth imp. I went into journey sleep when my family moved, and when I awakened not my family but the little castle had been moved to a new place. Stone by stone, apparently."

"So you date from Roman times," Bob said. "Or your imprisonment does, and, rather, from very late Roman times in Britain."

"Yes. The entire tower had been transferred, and I with it--but none of my family but the oldest woman's husband had come with it."

"Left his Irish family in Ireland, did he? Ireland wasn't even a Roman possession, though they tried a few times. Got kicked back into the Irish Sea. Well…that particular noble wouldn't be the only Roman, noble, soldier, or anything else, to abandon a provincial family when summoned back to the Republic proper. Though not that many transferred their places of residence so thoroughly. By sea, I presume."

"It was not large. It was very ancient. It was my home, and my family's home--I knew my family. They would not have permitted the destruction of the tower. It was a place of great power. I trusted…" Cruachan went silent for a while. "It was not a place of power when I awoke. Not anymore. My family was gone, and the tower was some sort of…showpiece."

Bob nodded sympathetically, but said nothing. He knew what it was to lose beyond what one thought one could survive losing.

"You understand, I believe," Cruachan boomed thoughtfully.

"I do," Bob said quietly.

"When I met the little daimon in my wanderings, I felt badly for him--trapped and bored in a place where no one could hear or see him. It seemed a condition of his imprisonment. I don't know why he was there."

"We were not told why he was there, either, nor of the reasons for the conditions placed on the entrapment--our…informant only had a few minutes to tell us who might be able to help us, if we would help it." Bloody, speaking of which, they were going to miss dinner with Tammy. Better find a way to give her/him a shout on that. He/she did love a good pierogi.

"Well, I conversed much with the spirit you sought, and you have helped me. Perhaps I can do you the service you sought from it."

"Perhaps you can. How did you end up stuck in its spot, by the way?"

"Do you remember the story of Hercules and Atlas? It was told to me by the spirit of whom we speak."

"Part of it. He asked Hercules to take the weight of the world for a few moments, just to let him straighten up briefly…Hercules did so, and Atlas refused to take the world back. Hercules, being part human, was used to dealing with Gods and their automatic assumptions about his intelligence, or lack thereof. He said 'Take the world back for a moment so that I may arrange my Nemean Lionskin as a pad for my shoulders.' Atlas did so, assuming no subtlety on Hercules's part. At this point Hercules observed that either Atlas was remarkably underendowed with wit, or he was under the mistaken impression that Hercules suffered that condition. Hercules then went about his business."

"Yes, that is the story. You may replace Atlas with Socrates' former daimonium, and Hercules with me. Only in this version, you may assume that Hercules is, indeed, dumb as a rock, or that at least Atlas was too bright to believe Hercules about the Lionskin."

"He tricked you into taking his place? How?"

I would rather not examine the details unless they become relevant to finding the information you seek. I will say only that a Greek daemon is a far more sophisticated creature than an Irish hearth imp, and that its priorities are so different as to be completely incomprehensible, one to the other."

"That is something I believe I understand," Bob said quietly. "As one to another, my sympathies."

"Thank you."

The door creaked open a bit. "Cruachan?" Megare whispered, with a fair Gaeilge accent.

"Harry is sleeping," Cruachan boomed in welcome. "He has eaten. He cannot hear me. Bob is with us here. We are all well."

"That is good. It is still very early in the morning." She slipped silently in; only the gold night lights were on. She gazed around the room.

"Bob, I thought you could not touch…anything."

Bob stared at her. Then his gaze flashed downward, taking in Harry, asleep in his lap.

"Oh, my," Bob whispered.

"I take it, then, that it is unusual for you to manifest yourself materially?" Cruachan wondered.

"It's unheard of. I don't know…I'm not sure what's…oh, my God."

Harry shifted in his lap just then--he didn't know if it was his own sudden extreme frisson--what was happening? Was this, in fact, a dream? Was Harry in danger?--or Megare's arrival in the room, but Harry fussed a bit and muttered, his voice deep and gravelly, "Bob? What are you wear…" he broke off as he tiredly pushed himself up, blinked in the dimness at Bob in his usual black suit, glanced down at himself clad from the waist down in the bedclothes--his eyes shot to the foot of the bed to see the vague shifting that indicated Cruachan's presence and Megare's silent, staring expression as she, too, waited to see what was wrong--and Harry burst out, "Bob? Where the hell is your skull!?"

Harry cast frantically about; the lights rose a bit, and Megare came to help, but Bob said "You needn't bother. I don't…I don't feel it. I don't feel it and I didn't realize."

"You didn't realize? After how many centuries, how could you not realize, how could there just be nothing there in the place where you told me that skull always is?"

"Because there is something in that place," Bob said quietly. "You."

Harry just stared at him. Megare acquired a tiny, uncertain half-smile, rose from the bed, and withdrew to the foot, where she picked up the food tray and beckoned to Cruachan. "We go for wine, yes? They are both fine for now. They must find what is happening to them. We will listen."

"Assuredly, Wizard Megare," Cruachan said cheerfully, and then the bedroom door closed.

Harry was still staring. "No. No. No. No."

"Harry, stay calm. Please."

Harry took a couple of breaths, looking down at his hands twisting in the sheet in front of his bent knees. "I'm sorry. I'm panicking. I'm sorry I'm panicking. Bob, how is it better for you to be bound to me than to your skull? You're still bound, you still serve me--and at least with the skull you had some privacy!"

Bob stared, truly stunned. "After all this time? All these centuries of nothing, of no one who trusted me, let alone…let alone what I've always been to you? Do you think that what a sense-deprived, humanity-deprived man wants is privacy? I want you!" He reached up, and put his hands on Harry's shoulders, and they stayed there, and when he squeezed and shook a little, Harry's body moved in time, moved just like Bob was really touching him--he was, was really touching him--as he gazed, petrified, at Bob.

"Harry, I--I'm sorry, here, let me--" he released Harry, but Harry grabbed his hands. Bob held them, and continued "--but we don't even know what it will be like. We don't know if I'm under the same limitations as I was with the skull. We don't know what happened to the bloody skull to begin with, though I have a strong suspicion that it is now, in one way or another, a part of you. In fact…we don't know that this isn't some effect of Megare. It might…it might even end at some point. When we leave here, or when something wears off…Megare is still a mystery to everyone who knows her. She has many friends…and none of them even know if she ever had a real last name. I think if she knew anything relevant, she'd tell us. She probably doesn't know anything for certain, except that it's not impossible she's involved somehow."

"And the dreaming," Harry said, very softly, his eyes shimmering. "I bet nobody's ever done that before, not as much as we do it, not…not the ways that I let you in, not as deep as I do, as we go."

"That, I am sure of, as well," Bob said softly, and caressed Harry's cheek. "My darling, it's not what you think, that I'm bound to you, now. I am not your slave. You're only my anchor. To me, it seems that…that you're mine."

Harry shuddered all over, hard, and his brow creased in confusion.

Bob pulled him close, and rocked him. Hell's bells, he had to do something about this bloody fucking suit--

And it was gone, like that; he was wearing the soft Aran-knit sweater and felted riding pants. Well, naked would have been nice; maybe he could try for that next. At least this wouldn't feel unpleasant to Harry's currently underprotected skin. Plus, perhaps it was a good thing, if he were going to become more interactive with the world, that he not suddenly become naked whenever his outfit didn't thrill him.

"I'm yours?" Harry whispered.

"Harry…since you were a child, you were…mine. My charge, my student, even my friend after a while. You were my given reason. You were my life, Harry--the only real, living part of me. You're still my life--my reason, my…my darling. Vast as I am, you are still somehow…everything to me."

Harry was motionless; he shook a little, and Bob worried that his tears were only upset, that he hated all this, hadn't wanted it, hadn't wanted it to go this direction, this speed, this way, something.

"We need to find out what you can touch," Harry said, wiping his face with both hands.

"Harry?" Bob leaned back, examining him, reaching up to help wipe a little. "Are you all right?"

Harry cradled Bob's cheek. "I love you," he whispered, leaned forward and kissed Bob, a long, gentle kiss; finally he pulled away, and finished "…I've been every kind of close to you, and I'd be any kind of close to you we haven't. But right now, we need to find out what you can touch. Sitting on the bed doesn't count; you can sit on things if you want to, the same way you can stand on the floor if you want to, or go right through it if you want to do that. It's just how you project. The clothes--they're from me, from dreaming with me. All you're touching right now is a naked me; maybe that's all you can touch. Try touching the sheet--try moving it. Try picking up the pillow. Try doing all that without touching me at the same time. See how far from me you can walk. See if I get pulled along with you or the other way around, or if--come on, Bob--come on!"

Harry's growing excitement was infectious, and pretty soon Bob was doing everything he suggested. There seemed to be no tether confining them within the limits of the room; they'd have to go outside to check that further, especially since everything might be dependent on it--nothing they discovered might be valid outside a certain distance.

Bob could touch. He could touch Harry, and he could manifest pressure wherever he chose. He could sense. Disquietingly, he often sensed what Harry was sensing as well as whatever he would normally be paying attention to, what was "right there" to him. Actually, sensing some of what Harry did was why he called a halt and suggested the distracted and chilly wizard put some clothes on.

"Try putting some on me," Harry challenged him, folding his arms and waiting where he sat on his heels on the bed.

Bob considered him--and Harry suddenly thrashed and fell over, unbalanced by the boots on his feet, the jeans, and the Aran-knit sweater that changed his bodily set on the mattress. "Hey!" he crowed, holding his arms out to look at them, and laughing. He slapped one arm with the other, then one leg, then bonked the headboard with one boot heel. "This is amazing! Come on!" He headed for the door and hauled it open, running out, closely followed by Bob.

Harry yelled "Cruachan! Megare!" as they descended the stairs.

"We hear," Megare said, coming into the room. Dawn was barely breaking outside, turning the Mediterranean grey; soon it would be brilliant blue. "We hear, all right. What is--oof!"

Harry had run to her and thrown his arms around her ribs, picking her up. She wasn't a big woman; her feet swung free and she clung automatically, and when she did, her hands gripped the sweater in handfuls over his back.

"She can touch it too, Bob, you see that?" Harry demanded, laughing.

"I see it, my darling," Bob whispered unnecessarily. Megare, getting nothing from Harry, looked at him--and smiled, a huge blooming smile, at the adoration on his face.

"He can touch things," Harry was saying to Megare. "He can touch anything he wants. He can feel things. We don't know if he can taste many things--we gotta try feeding him, but wait--maybe we should see if he gets hungry. Look at him, Meg--he looks so real. He looks just the same, but now he looks real. This is how he looks…I let him in my mind, through my subconscious, so when I dream, we dream--"

Her eyes widened.

"--and he looks so solid, just like this. The same, but more of it. Crap, I'm not doing this very well--" Harry didn't look like remembering to put her down for a while. As small women all over the world have found out, who get picked up in that manner and then held: You can take the strain off your lower back by raising your knees to the lifter's sides.

At that moment, Cruachan appeared--in the fireplace. There was a grin of teeth, the wink of a glowing red oval, and then he vanished. Bob laughed, amused at the imp's manner of conveying approval.

Harry suddenly dropped Megare on her ass.

Bob stared, completely appalled, as Megare sat, motionless and rattled. Harry was staring into space.

"Harry!" Bob snapped. "My word!"

Harry blinked, and finally noticed the woman on the floor in front of him in a loose nightgown, looking sour and rotating onto one hip to grope her bum. "Warning, Harry," she muttered. "Think warning."

"I am so sorry! Oh shit! Oh no!" Harry gasped, bending rapidly to pick her up in his arms and carry her carefully to a sofa. "I am so, so sorry, I am totally fucking sorry. I don't know--shit, I--saw Cruachan, he grinned and winked and--my arms weren't--I wasn't even holding you. I--" he looked confused; Megare was listening, and trying to keep a bead on his expression, but she was also rolling over on her front and Harry, kneeling by the sofa, was too distraught to notice and help, so Bob went and did so, helping her get her gown straight and such. He began to prod about her tailbone, too concerned to take note of the fact that he could touch her, could remember how to do this, could sense all the delicate differences in body tissue thickness and type and fluid distribution and everything else that he had when he himself had been a sorcerer--he was more concerned with the fact that she made a face and said "Aah!" Unfortunately, it wasn't in offense at the ass-groping; she was going to have a highly bruised butt.

"Well, since Harry did it, Harry will just have to get rid of it. Won't you, Harry?" Bob kneed Harry in the side so hard Harry fell over. "Just drop the woman right on her--oh. Dear. Harry, the way you were standing--you were facing the window, not the hearth. You couldn't have seen Cruachan wink at me."

"I did not see imp," Megare said, wincing as she shifted position.

"Then only I did. But Harry didn't just know he was there--which he probably would know even if he were full of sodium pentothal--he saw what he did. There's no way he could have done that without either considerable preparation, which I happen to know he did not make, or through me."

"Then it was through you," Harry said from the floor. He propped his head on one hand and looked thoughtful. "Through you..."

"Well, Harry, that might not be good. Look what you did, when you got that impression from me. You no longer…felt your own body. You didn't simply see what I saw--all of your senses became subsumed in mine, for a second, and your body ceased to operate on the information it was receiving through itself. And Megare struck the floor rather hard. That was a very illustrative first occurrence for this sort of thing. We'd better find some way to make sure the next one's not worse."

"You say, his senses subsumed," said Megare. "Maybe not your senses. Maybe his senses. Going through you."

"His senses, going--"

"I believe," came Cruachan's boom from the hearth, "that Wizard Megare is referring to the possibility that all the senses in operation here now belong to Wizard Dresden--or, perhaps, originally belonged to Wizard Dresden and still resonate to him in some manner, but certain amounts or aspects of them are now under the control and auspices of the Wizard of Bainbridge."

There was a long silence.

Bob laughed nervously. "That's one form of address I haven't heard in quite a while," he said. "In fact, the only thing I remember about it is the first time someone seriously addressed me by it." He was quiet again.

"Perhaps," Cruachan continued, as if thoughtful, "since the idea of Wizard Dresden's clothing is the Wizard of Bainbridge's, but the solidity and reality of the clothing in question could not have been before now, what Wizard Dresden is contributing here is solidity. His aliveness, reality. While Wizard Dresden slept earlier tonight, my senses detected that they were joined at a level deeper than I have ever seen any spirit or magical creature voluntarily join itself."

"Is that true?" Bob whispered. "Because we did do something…different…"

"It was almost pure communication," Megare said to Bob, her words suddenly very clear, as it sometimes was when she was speaking to him rather than to Harry, or to both of them. "Almost perfect communication. Think of perfect travel--perfect travel is not to travel. Perfect travel would already be there. What would perfect communication be? Not to communicate. No need. Perfect communication be to already know."

"Ah. Very aptly put," Cruachan applauded.

"Yeah," Harry breathed. "Very aptly put."

They were all silent for a time.

"I wish we had some way to…verify any of this," Bob said.

"I wish I knew where your goddam skull was," Harry complained, fist contacting floor on the word "skull".

"I'd like to know how far away from each other we can walk before we find out that beyond a certain yardage, you and I are both troll's gold," Bob said grimly. "That one, we can check, by leaving the house. We won't do that until we've taken care of Megare's bruise, though. milady Megare, where is your laboratory? We won't be a moment."


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the characters and I don't own this story.

**_LOUD AND CLEAR! I DO NOT, HAVE NOT AND WILL NOT EVER OWN THIS STORY!_**

**This story is the property of Tang Guangzhen who was kind enough to give me permission to post this here. Any flames about that will be used to fry your ass.**

**Thank You**

* * *

"Oh, no." 

"What?" Bob wondered.

"She's neat."

"Actually the main living room seemed a bit dusty--"

"Her lab, Bob, look at the place. How can she possibly find anything in here?"

"Oh, don't be so melodramatic. Her visualized dactylation--"

"Don't remind me."

"I thought you were very sweet," Bob shrugged.

"It was evil, Bob. I was out of it. Don't worry, I'm not even going to say anything about it; I'm not in the mood to whine any more, I find."

"Yes, things have taken a sobering turn, haven't they?"

Harry was moving along the shelves on the left-hand wall, where a huge wooden cabinet of hundreds of lidded compartments, labeled in Greek on paper rectangles in the little brass label-holders, held various pure herbs, prepared simples and compounds, and other such, including bandages, cotton balls and a bottle of isopropyl. Harry foraged, muttering to himself occasionally about what would be where.

"She can hardly justify leaving the place the sort of dank hole with dodgy closets your lab is. She can put everything in its place in a few seconds."

"It's unprofessional. Having a clean lab, I mean."

"That's not what's stuck in your craw as being 'unprofessional'. Would you rather she hadn't carried you to bed and undressed you? If she hadn't, you know who would have offered, and me not really in a position to say no…"

Harry sighed. "The attack imp."

"I'm not sure how he transports things. I am frankly not entirely sure what he is. House spirits are created by the houses--or whatever--and the people living in them; when they lose their houses, they must look for somewhere to fit in as they are, but this one…in any case, I'm glad Megare was there to help. The brazier is fine, but…"

"I was glad, too, and I guess I lie completely about the no whining thing."

"Don't worry. No one is shocked."

Harry took a towel off a hook and threw it at him. Bob caught it and threw it back; its corner-ring hanging up on the hook.

"Very nice," Harry said with a half-smile. "Who needs visualized dactylation?"

"Come along, now--we've a friend with an arse broken for our sake; nothing must stand in our way."

"That's very inspiring," Harry said, patting Bob's shoulder. "I'm moved. Really."

"Thank you, Harry," Bob muttered, "thank you ever so much." He fetched the little burner--this one looked like a fancy silver urn, as opposed to Harry's, which looked like a hobo's fondue pot--a container of magical canned fuel, and a stone base.

"I happen to be very fond of Megare, by the way. She made a good aunt when I was…not as old as now."

"She's a fine…person."

"Yeah, that one's always kind of a toughie with her…"

"We could just ask her."

"You ask her."

"I'm not the one who wants to know."

"You did all that research into her name. And incidentally came up with bupkis."

"That was different."

"From…?"

"Mostly in that I would have bothered then. Now, a bit of privacy, even from your friends or your wizard fellows, doesn't seem too much to ask."

Harry sucked air sympathetically through his teeth in an "ouch" noise and said "Yeah, I hear that. You know, I bet she never has to clean up all the shattered pieces of her most recent set of subliming pots."

"I thought it was a scrap of aludel you cut your foot on."

"It was. We need that name for somebody who's got their papers in blowing shit up."

* * *

"I have to tell you," Megare said, as they moved her carefully to the floor, where Harry'd laid cushions, "working any magic on me is difficult. I try to cooperate."

"Healing is very simple," Bob said; Harry leaned down and whispered "Don't get him going" in Megare's ear. Bob kicked his ankle and went on "The body does most of it."

"I know that, but…well. Sometimes my body does not…understand."

"Harry's very good with animals and small children. Perhaps your body will be no different." He smiled at her, and she grinned, though he could see where a laugh would be beyond her at the moment. "Let's get your gown where it won't end up with the compress all over it. Tell me if you get cold." Together, they managed to get her gown off, but she peered over her shoulder at her shorts and looked at Bob, spreading her hands helplessly. Harry was in a better position to do something, but he was carefully feeding bits of this and that into the glycerinelike liquid in the burner, and hadn't noticed the problem.

"Harry. Harry!" Bob called. He should have let Megare do it--Harry was used to tuning Bob out when he was working.

"Yeah," he said, looking up. "Something wrong?"

"My shorts," Megare said.

"Oh," Harry said, swooped the shorts down her legs and off, pitched them over her to lie on her nightgown, and went back to the burner. "I'm nearly done here. This stuff is, like, Boil-N-Bag, you've gotta show me how you prepare it. Bob, hand me one of those, um, yeah, thanks," Harry said as Bob passed several soft, white cloths back to him. The room was starting to smell powerful. It wasn't antiseptic, and it wasn't bad, but it was overwhelmingly green and herbal.

Harry, swearing softly under his breath at the heat, was dousing one of the cloths. The liquid was hot enough that he was doing it by trailing it in the pot, a corner at a time, until it was soaked through. Bob came over and as Harry folded the steaming, highly aromatic cloth, started soaking another one.

Harry lay the cloth on Megare's tailbone, which was turning color and swelling. She hissed softly, closed her eyes, and lowered her head to the cushion under it. "It is cracked," she whispered.

"Yeah, it is," Harry murmured, his eyes closed too, as his hand rested on the cloth. "No problem."

"Says the one with his bottom intact," Megare whispered.

Bob snorted a laugh, covering his face with one hand.

"Can it, over there in the cheap seats," Harry said, smiling, but not opening his eyes. "We're ready for another one." He held the cooling compress cloth back toward Bob, who took it and lay a freshly soaked one over Harry's palm.

Harry got the cloth arranged. "Here we go, now," he said softly, and did sound a bit the way he sounded when he was calming an injured animal. It was a gentle tone that wasn't patronizing enough to piss anyone off. He'd used it with Bob, too. "Just breathe, let me get settled, and then we'll see…what we…can do…steady breaths…"

Soft gold light shone from his hand, and possibly from Megare's body. Harry's left hand settled on her back, halfway between her shoulder blades and his other hand, and the glow started there, too.

After a couple of minutes, Megare made a face, difficult to see with her hair over it, but definitely not pleased. "Too much, we lose…control…"

"No," Harry whispered, "I've got it…"

Bob took the most recently wetted cloths and went around Harry, stepped over Megare's legs, and settled by her other hip. He touched her hand, the barest tingle of power in his fingers. "Megare…?"

"Look," she whispered. "No, you do not…need…close your eyes, you will see what he sees."

He wanted to ask what made her say that, but this wasn't a good time to try for complex dialogues. Instead he closed his eyes.

"Seeing what he sees" wasn't the best way to put it; it was more he was sensing what Harry sensed. If he calmed, settled, turned his attention away from his own environment, focused internally…he was still getting sensory input, it seemed.

Megare's tailbone had a slanting crack in it. It probably would have been invisible to an X-ray machine. They were having a bit of a stop-and-start with it. It seemed Megare knew how to do this with her particular person better than Harry could figure it out, but Harry was the more powerful healer. The power was actually tripping him up, though, as he sometimes went faster than he could keep up with, and the power dissipated uselessly.

You were right; your ass is fighting me, Harry thought.

Perhaps it recognizes you, she thought back.

Harry, Bob thought.

Uh…hi, Harry thought.

Stop trying so hard. You know that in a healing, the more the situation seems to fight you, the more gently you approach it. Don't try to keep up with it; let it…run away with you.

Harry didn't respond, but his presence now carried a feeling of hesitancy.

Bob moved a little, and found himself in Harry's timespace. We begin again, he thought, or maybe he was only remembering. Easy, from the start.

When he tried to simply let his energy flow in, it splashed off. When he tried to guide it, he lost the connection with Megare's tissues. When he tried to head up to the brain and send energy out from there, he bumped into another wizard, or her defenses.

Don't pour, he thought. Dive. Let it do what it wants with me. I know what I want to do; it will come through at the proper level.

Bob, you're in my light.

Sorry. Bob pulled back and out, and felt his eyes, closed, and opened them.

He touched Megare again. "Megare?"

"He is all right now," she whispered. It struck him as an odd thing for the patient to say, but if it were true…well, all to the good.

Harry's healing light was expanding, all over Megare, and all over himself. Bob quietly replaced the compress under Harry's hand with a fresh one; rocking his hand onto its heel for a second to do that didn't make any difference that he could tell.

He backed away from the two of them--really, interfering in a healing wasn't the first thing he ought to be doing, was it, especially in a body that apparently was a creation generated by Bob's guidance and Harry's raw material. He sat down on the hearth. The sky outside was blue, now, and the sea.

"Wizard of Bainbridge," a voice boomed.

Bob just about went through the ceiling. When he came down, he panted "Harry and Megare, your voice--"

"They cannot hear me. I thought they were asleep, but apparently it's some sort of trance. Interesting. Did you and Wizard Dresden accomplish your purpose outside?"

"No, we did not, unfortunately." Bob sighed. "And we shan't, in the manner we had been planning. We realized it would be incredibly stupid to simply walk out of each other's sight alone. Neither of us would have suggested it, but we're a bit…agitated about this development."

"I understand. What do you propose to do?"

"We still need the data we were discussing; as of now, we have only hypotheses. We can't even eliminate explanations, because this situation is so extremely unprecedented." He frowned. "Or is 'unprecedented' an absolute?"

"It is, but under the circumstances I can forgive the addition of an intensifier."

This is a hearth-imp? Bob thought, dangerously near breaking into giggles. He'd noticed it already. The bloody hobgoblin was an attack-creature, as Harry had said, and apparently, judging by the way the translator was rendering him, highly educated and intelligent.

"Cruachan, if it's not too personal, may I ask if your house was a house of Druids?"

There was a pause. "It was," he said, politely enough, but he didn't offer anything more.

"Thank you," Bob said quietly. "To answer your question, we had thought, for the moment, to try keeping you and Megare, once she is properly healed and rested, of course, with him and with me, respectively. If something goes wrong, I am the one more likely to need another wizard, though if I can change his mind about that, I will. I am still here, somewhere. But the visible body, now--my senses, everything--we haven't experimented or demonstrated anything, and it's true that the pattern is mine, my ability to project--but I'm sure these senses are his."

"Is he not using his?"

"Of course. What I'm using is…is the corresponding sensing centers in his brain, you see, and the nerves needed to connect them from the brain to the sensor itself. With the addition of…of me, Harry and I seem to be creating a second version of him. In very loose terms, of course--what I mean is, a projection of him, of a second human being with some of the exact same characteristics…but, owing to my presence, not all the same."

"His brain is supporting a good deal of activity."

"Yes, it is. I would say that that's one of the things I'm worried least about, but since it's Harry we're talking about…"

"Accident-prone?"

"Harry is accident-prone the way fish are water-prone."

"Ah. I understand. But otherwise the high level of activity would not be worrisome?"

"Not yet. The human nervous system has too many redundancies to count; he isn't using the greater part of any nerve conduit at any given time. Even with the presence of a second set of signals, most of the conduit remains unused. He uses only about five to ten percent of his 'thinking' brain, the cerebral cortex; if I were to possess him, we might both come out of it all right--we discussed it, in case it should happen without our volition." He paused, thinking, and went on "The reason people die to themselves when they're possessed, if they die, is that the possessing spirit sees that it happens. It's a fight, not some kind of automatic switch, although sometimes the host is easy to subdue and the invader doesn't bother killing it. That the host sometimes survives this to be freed when the possessing spirit is exorcised shows that there is room for more than one. A single human nervous system is adequate to carry the necessary information for two humans, certainly. But who would ever want to share a single body?"

"Highly interesting," Cruachan said. He was still totally invisible, so Bob was having this chat with the fireplace. He assumed Cruachan was resting up a bit, having found himself a warm hob for a little while. "Fascinating questions. What are Wizard Dresden and Wizard Megare doing, by the way?"

"Harry dropped her hard right on her tailbone and cracked it. He's healing the damage, and controlling the bruising and swelling."

"Goodness. Why did he do that?"

"A little problem it looks like we may have. As I said, most of the nerve conduit is empty of meaningful signal at any one time, and there is more than enough room for two…but--though the odds are quite against it--occasionally, the signals may cross, or one may join the other. We would know which had happened if we were both inconvenienced at the same time for a brief moment, or if only one of us was affected. Harry's visual signal was briefly entrained, I think, by my own signals at a key juncture somewhere, and the way he described it, other senses might have been affected, which would have put the point of entrainment elsewhere. It's startling that it happened at all so quickly; it worries me a bit. And there are other considerations, of course. Harry has only one reticular formation, one h-complex, one limbic system in general and such, and whatever chemical changes in the charge-carrying neurochemical fluid are made by the experiences and thoughts of one of us, the changes will affect both."

"So…if he is hungry…"

"So will I be. If he is frightened, cold, tired, content, bemused, confused--I don't know how many of those will apply, and I'm sure some of them will be a slight awareness at the edge of my senses, and others will completely reprogram my current synaptic pattern and drop me into a new reality. And I doubt that the same things will happen to him, seeded by my own thoughts and such. I think the laws of proximity apply. In a sense, he's the master unit and I'm an auxiliary unit. I am controlling the situation; Harry is generating the situation. It's not unlike…" he paused.

"Yes?" Cruachan prompted.

"I just realized--in part, I've been describing the dreaming. Harry and I--he lets me…his defenses, at a number of different levels--they don't operate on me, because Harry trusts me. He says I'm the only one they wouldn't activate for, but I'm not betting Harry's life on it if it comes down to finding out. In any case, I was able to share Harry's dreams with him, and control the dreams, and Harry's sleep, so that he'd get a little more out of both."

"Then…you had some degree of freedom, even if as a dream."

"Yes," Bob said quietly. "He wanted me to have that, and he was entirely unafraid that I might take advantage of the situation in any way. It's hellishly unnerving. A human ought to be a bit nervous in such circumstances. He isn't."

"Not with you," Cruachan clarified, speaking slowly, as though asking for his own understanding, "who are his friend, no? Did he not specify that?"

"He certainly did. Emphatically. No one else, he said. And…I believe him. But he's always been too trusting." Bob sighed. "Always." He considered mentioning Justin, and several women--or at least female people--and even male friends…even himself. However, he decided that a discussion of the mechanics of what he and Harry were experiencing would be interesting to the Druid's hobgoblin, but a lamentation on his personal problems would probably only be of use to Cruachan if the Druid healers had invented and used psychology during his time with them, which Bob very much misdoubted had happened in a warrior culture.

"Is that posture part of the healing, or is it affectionate?" Cruachan wondered.

Bob looked up. Harry had curled up to Megare, with his head on her upper back and his eyes closed. His hand was still over the compress, and gold light glowed from almost all over both of them. His other arm curved up over his head and under Megare's; she was using it for a pillow. Her hair completely obliterated her face in shining black.

"In Harry's case, a little of both," Bob said, smiling.

If they hadn't moved on their own in a few minutes, he'd have to wake them; but they did move, after the gold light, dimming and condensing into patches across them, finally faded completely.

Harry snuffled.

"Not to blow your nose in my hair, please," Megare sighed without moving.

"I'm not," Harry murmured, then looked down, removed the compress--which was dry; the skin where her tail would have been if she'd had one shimmered with moisture, though. It was pale and smooth.

He probed the bony section at the base of her spine and moved lower, to where the swelling and cracked bone had been. "Anything?"

"It is fine. We were done. I must lie down in my bed and sleep, and you too should. Sleep. Not in my bed. English, dammit," she muttered. Bob had come over to help her stand. She had velvety-cushion imprints all down the front of her person, which was small, a bit rounded, and evidently enhanced by iron-pumping; she was cut. She rubbed at a cushion mark on her belly with one hand as Bob led her from the room, supporting her, to her own bed.

When he returned, Harry had rolled over onto the cushions, on his back. "I think that's the farthest we've been apart yet," he said when he opened his eyes. "Anything?"

"If you mean, did I feel any change from what I feel standing next to you--no, nothing. Physical, at least."

Harry started to get up; Bob blinked at the reflex that had caused him to walk over to Harry and give him a hand. Interesting; such reflexes were either still there, after all this time, or he had Harry's, for some reason.

"Wizard Dresden!" the fireplace boomed.

"Fuck!" Harry spasmed and ended up sagging sideways, clinging to Bob in almost the same position as Megare had clung to Harry, only it was a lot more awkward because Harry was bigger than Bob, plus Bob was laughing silently as he tried to keep Harry from slithering out of his grip and hitting the floor.

"Shit," Harry muttered. He lifted his head and said with a shaky half-smile, "Hi, Cruachan."

"I had just sat down on the hearth when he did that to me," Bob said. "Uff. You did grow into a strapping fellow, didn't you?" He heaved Harry over to land sitting on the couch.

"Are you well, Wizard Dresden?"

"I think so," Harry said as Bob sat next to him; he was glaring at Harry to prevent him from saying something like "I'll be fine as soon as I get hold of a dry pair of pants". Harry glared back and continued "My worst problem is I don't know where Bob's skull is."

"I agree that's a problem, but why is it your worst problem? I would seem to be present and accounted for," Bob wondered.

"Because we're stuck here as long as we don't know what happened to it. If we just…leave, put Cruachan in one of those airline pet carriers sized for a Clydesdale and head out…"

"I see your point. We might be leaving it, or some crucial component of it, behind."

"Even if we don't actually find it, find the skull itself, we have to find out what happened to it. Bob, you said you suspected it was, um…"

"I said part of you in some way, I think; more specifically, I believe its function has been incorporated into…you, I suppose. You are what's there when I look in the place I keep what I'm bound to."

"Part of me how? My bones, my bloodstream? Did it lose all its molecular cohesion and I happened to be lying on it? Besides, the line between you and me is getting sort of blurry."

Cruachan said "I am not completely informed as to the difficulty, but if what the Wizard of Bainbridge told me is so…"

"I was chatting with him about neurology earlier," Bob explained at Harry's look. "Neurology as seen by a wizard dealing with a case of involuntary possession."

"I think the fact that you know everything is just some sort of reflex. You need to know because that was the function they created for you. They condemned you to be a magical encyclopedia and gave you a compulsion."

"As long as it's only for learning, I'm not worried about it."

"What if I get your compulsions?"

"I doubt that will happen. As I explained to Cruachan earlier, I think you're the one generating the situation. If we remain like this long…"

"We'd better remain like this until we locate your skull."

"Or at least until we discover what specifically has become of it."

"I am confused," the fireplace admitted.

"You're far from alone," Harry muttered.

"I followed the Wizard of Bainbridge's explanations, but they seem to lead to different conclusions. Wizard of Bainbridge, did you not say that you were the one controlling?"

"In a sense. I am--or rather, the specifics of who and what I am, combined with the specific capabilities and requirements of the spell which is my curse--are controlling the way I manifest out of what Harry generates."

"Hold it," Harry said, leaning forward, elbows on knees and waving a hold-on with both hands for a moment. "Now I'm confused too. Okay, I'm the instigator, and you--"

"It's probably that you're thinking of it that way that confuses you. You…and I mean no disrespect, Harry, honestly--are the raw material I, or more properly my curse, control in whatever way. I cannot change what you are; I can only control what I'm given. The way my own moods and perceptions may change as a result of your neurochemical states is part of the raw material; but what that is, is not what's under my control. And not all of what is here or elsewhere in the equation is you; some of it's me. Less of it, but some of it."

Harry blinked. "Okay. And you base this on what?"

"At the moment, on observations of us both, knowledge as to what we've been…erm…"

"What we've been up to?" Harry smirked, raising an inquisitive eyebrow. "That what you were gonna say?" The smirk on his full lips slowly transformed into a smile, and he just barely winked.

While Harry usually looked like he'd been dragged through a bush backward, it never made the slightest difference in how very lovely he was. Bob couldn't say that specifically, of course, because it would seriously undermine his campaign to get Harry to shave, contain his hair in some fashion, and obtain, in whatever way he chose, some clothes that fit and weren't ready to disintegrate entirely.

"Bob? Something wrong?"

Bob blinked a couple of times, and smiled. "Nothing, my darling. I intend to base it on more, once we've had a moment that you're not either being injured or injuring someone else."

Cruachan asked "And your physical disappearance when you aided Wizards Dresden and Megare during the healing?"

Harry and Bob both looked at the fireplace.

"What?"

"Excuse me?"

"For a few moments, your visible, physical manifestation in human space vanished. I assumed you were not manifesting materially in the basic dimensions because you--"

"He disappeared?"

Bob said "Obviously he must mean when I asked Megare if I might join you, and we worked on the problem of her body's unusual resistance."

"Yeah. There's somethin' I might not've noticed, too. Hey, Cru--when Bob disappeared…um. Hell, out with it, I guess--did I suddenly get naked?"

Bob blinked. "I hadn't even thought. I forgot your…"

"Yes," Cruachan said, sounding curious. "Is that a side effect of your healing trance? Do you often wear clothes that are magical in nature?"

"No, I don't, no one I know does, it's…too iffy," Harry said. "Though it's done occasionally for specific reasons. Like being a were-human, or waking up naked under a pool table. Anyway, um…Bob…"

"Yes, that would seem to indicate another facet of my being the steering in our bilateral mechanism. The clothes I dressed you in are 'made' of the same thing I am--whatever that is, exactly, and maintained by...me. I don't mean consciously; I mean, by my presence in a certain condition of awareness."

"Right. So, you put clothes on me--where do you suppose this is all coming from? If--hang on--" He lunged over, braced his hands on the sofa back, one on either side of Bob's head, and straddled him, kneeling.

"Um, Harry--"

"Unknot yourself, Bob." Harry slid his hands around Bob's lower back, squeezed him close and hoisted, grunting "My record for--pickin' people up like this ain't--good so far this--morning--" he let go, and he and Bob rode the couch bounce; then Harry sat down on Bob's knees and started shaking his arms out. "Whatever you're made of and wherever you're coming from, it can't be my actual body," he said. "You weigh about what you look like you ought to, near as I can tell, and if that much were taken out of me, I'd be the size of a postage stamp."

"Oh, you'd be bigger than that. And in any case, I'm afraid it may still be more complicated than that in terms of what I'm 'receiving' from you. So, the things I manifest will vanish if my manifestation does…"

"I don't think you'd better do that with anything else until we know a little more. I'm glad you did this--" he fingered the sweater, "--because we've got some more information, but…"

"No, it wouldn't be advisable. In fact, feeling fatigue, I was wondering if things I created that way would remain if I were asleep, rather than wondering at the fatigue. It's amazing how quickly one can get back into the habit of having a solid body, even if not quite a totally human one. I examined Megare's injury as I would have when I was…a fully-functioning wizard, and hardly noticed my capability to do so, in my concern over the fact that she was injured and over what could be wrong with you. In a way, suddenly having what at least feels like a living body is as limiting as it is freeing."

"Yeah. Things like bein' tired--and I bet you are, 'cause I am--"

"Well of course you are, you must be--you just fell asleep in a healing. Fortunately that's safe enough..."

"Healing feels good," Harry shrugged. "People fall asleep sometimes."

Bob sighed, rubbing his eyes in exasperation at the whole situation. "I feel like I'm going to do it right here."

"I think we better go sleep for a while, Cru," Harry said, nodding and resting his forehead against Bob's a moment. "You yell for us if any weirdness goes on?" They got up and headed for the correct hallway.

"Oh, most assuredly, Wizard Dresden. I am a house-spirit; in a fireplace I can detect everything that happens in or near the house."

Bob and Harry both stopped walking. "You can?" Harry said.

"As a house-spirit, I am used to maintaining the utmost in discretion," Cruachan said, as if considering. "Except in dangerous emergency."

"Uh, yeah. Of course."

"While you recuperate, I will investigate Wizard Megare's abode. Perhaps I will find something resembling the Wizard of Bainbridge's skull."

"We'd appreciate that, Cru, but be careful. This is a wizard's house, and we're not Druids. You might not recognize a dangerous trap unless you fall over it."

"I will take reasonable precautions, of course, Wizard Dresden, but I doubt there is any need to worry."

"He is a house spirit," Bob reminded him. "It's a bit different from simply wandering discorporate through a building."

"I know that, Bob, but this isn't his house."

"Nevertheless, I think he's equal to the task. The only concern is that he might be a bit overequal."

"Barbaric Irish lack of control?"

"He's the spirit of a house of Druids. His curiosity may be his undoing."

"That's a problem a lot of us face," Harry said softly, half-smiling.

Bob smiled back at him fondly, and said "Once Megare has had some rest, she can undertake a similar operation, with your assistance, to greater effect; it's her house, and you'd have the greater chance finding…traces, of matter, energy, related to…"

"I hear you, yeah," Harry murmured. "She might notice something unusual, but I'd know if it was a relevant something unusual. Or…you would."

"Mm." Bob shook his head as they reentered the bedroom, where they found their luggage from the hotel by walking into it. Harry flailed--when a tall guy flails, it's best to duck, so Bob did, until Harry had fallen over on the bed. "Thanks, Megare," he muttered, sitting up.

Bob was opening a little envelope on top of Harry's suitcase. "This is actually for you," he said, holding the envelope up to show Harry's name across it in chancery italic.

"Then give it here, you big snoop."

"Sorry, it's a habit by this time. In any case, I suspect I know what it is--ah, yes." He held up the receipt for payment for their stay where Harry could see it. "She knows you too well."

"Give me that, I'll need it." Bob handed the slip of paper over the luggage, and Harry apparently realized at this point that his pants didn't have his wallet in them. He got up to find it.

"You know," Bob said, sitting on the bed, "I think I know why I'm having these impulses, feelings, as though I hadn't been noncorporeal for centuries."

"I thought it was because you got used to it slowly in the dreaming. That's gotta be why you didn't notice you were touching me after…that deep thing we did, whatever it was, exactly."

"That, yes, that's undoubtedly part of it. But also, the…impulses, are yours. You have them; so I do, too."

"Part of the 'raw material'?" Harry said thoughtfully, putting his wallet on the bedside table and starting to take his boots off. They might vanish, but it would be an uncomfortable wait for them to do so.

"In a way, I suppose."

"It was kind of a shocker when the attack imp started calling you 'Wizard of Bainbridge'."

"Yes, one could've heard a pin drop."

"He must be perceiving you as…there, physically, instead of a ghost--and he sees you as a Wizard."

"He has ways to see such things beyond the physical of the dimensions we usually live in. He seems to wander in those dimensions, not pinned down to any particular set of them. When he appears only as a…shifting in the air, and a sense of shape, I'm willing to bet he's in whatever his normal resting state is. I'm not an expert on the geometry of extraspatial dimensions, unfortunately, but I would guess he can slide about spatially in a way that few beings can. Most only come from their versions of the universe and return to them; he is apparently at home traveling between."

"Definitely not your basic hearth imp."

"Definitely not, yet he is what his house and people made him--they must have had some understanding of these things."

"Well, the Irish did know a lot for an ancient people. They knew thousands of years ago that the brain was the seat of intelligence and identity in the body. Even the Egyptians, in the embalming process, threw it out as skull-stuffing, didn't put it in canopic jars or anything."

Bob moved to sit next to Harry. "You actually listen to my ramblings, don't you."

"It came up a couple of times. About the reverence they had for the head, and that when they took their enemies' heads, it was a sign of respect, not of triumph."

"It gladdens my heart that you paid such close attention to an old ghost's stories."

"I loved your stories, y'old fart," Harry said. "Think you can get rid of this outfit? I could take it off, but…"

"But the information would be useful." Bob nodded, then frowned; Harry suddenly got naked.

"Okay, I am no longer going to wear any clothes generated by you in front of people. I don't trust your sense of humor."

"That's probably quite intelligent," Bob agreed thoughtfully, and smiled when Harry did. He concentrated a moment--it had worked to get rid of the suit and replace it with the sweater and riding trousers--and his own clothes were gone.

"Much better." Harry seized him around the waist and pulled him into the sheets.

The lights automatically dimmed; the gold nightlights came up, which wasn't mystifying; as with many rooms in Megare's bunkerlike abode, there were no windows, though the wall décor had been arranged to suggest it, using paintings and other framing devices like shelving, tall cabinets, and wall sconces to suggest them. Having examined the unusual depth of the style of the paintings, and the fact that most of them depicted forest or mountain scenes--a few beach scenes--that could have been right outside, he suspected he knew their primary purpose--though they worked as décor, too.

"We should rest," Bob whispered as Harry crawled over him, using almost his entire body to pet Bob, sliding and grasping, punctuated by soft kisses. Bob wasn't exactly throwing him off.

"We will. But…you know, this isn't a dream."

"Yes, of course, and as such, it will be…clumsier, and…"

"…not as neat, and stopping for things, and zigging when the other person zags, and bashing your lip on your tooth, and everything else real sex is like. Which is why I want it with you, if you do, if this is the only chance we're going to have."

"I don't think that's the case," Bob said. "That doesn't matter, though, you're right; I want you, too." He sighed, smiling a quiet smile. "After all, when don't I?"

"If you're not there when I dream…"

"I'm not sure, my darling, but you know I will be if I can."

Harry nodded. "Yeah. And…you'll be back, if you can. If you vanish, like when you…like earlier. You came back."

"We'll have to find out about the details of all that, the way it's going to work--at least for the time." Bob tried to keep a dolorous note out of his voice, smiling and resting a hand on Harry's cheek.

"Bob," Harry started, and then just shook his head and moved down to bury his face in Bob's neck, hanging on. "This sucks."

"Being propelled up and down an emotional roller coaster generally does. Beloved, I never intended all this. I only wanted to touch you--I'd wanted to for so long, and I knew you had as well. And I honestly didn't expect it to work."

"I know; your state of alarm for my safety when it did work and I acted…"

"Lackadaisical?"

"Yeah, that--that clued me in. In addition to your saying so. Who the hell could know…I guess that's what we get for being a test case."

"It's true you won't find much of anything in any of the literature--even the stuff that's not as easy to get one's hands on--about a situation like this."

"Likely not. But, um…I love you. And even if you…stay like you are, whatever it is exactly, and sleep, like me…I hope you dream with me somehow." What they'd been doing depended, in part, on Bob's being a discarnate entity and a former wizard. Whether it would work now…

"I hope so too. Sshh, now…" He petted Harry everywhere he could reach, slow and soothing. "Touch me."

They moved together, and Harry echoed the words softly, less to make the same request and more as though to listen to them again. "Touch me…" he breathed, rolling over to straddle Bob.

"With great pleasure," Bob whispered.


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the characters and I don't own this story.

**_LOUD AND CLEAR! I DO NOT, HAVE NOT AND WILL NOT EVER OWN THIS STORY!_**

**This story is the property of Tang Guangzhen who was kind enough to give me permission to post this here. Any flames about that will be used to fry your ass.**

**Thank You**

* * *

Bob was perched in one of the windows of Harry's launch/crash pad bedroom, the one he'd constructed to give a sense of continuity to Harry's comings and goings in his own various sleep states, and act as a retreat. The dimly-seen bedclothes stirred through the transparent drapes in the twilit room; very much beyond the movement itself was hidden. 

"Hello, my darling," he said softly; those words were, by this time, usually enough to orient Harry as to where he was and what was happening. For surety's sake, though, he finished with the de rigueur information and question; "You're dreaming, and I'm here. How do you feel?"

There was a bit of sheet-shuffling, and then the curtains were floundered at. Harry found an opening in the screening and peered out. "Bob?" he said softly.

Bob didn't feel the blood draining from his face, even in here; but he did feel his eyes growing huge.

The eyes blinking sleepily at him were Harry's, all right, but he couldn't have been more than twelve. His hair hung heavily in his smooth-cheeked face, and he impatiently swiped it over with his other hand. "I'm here," he said. "I think I'm okay. Feel kind of funny."

Do something, Bob's internal prompter advised him, and he got up quickly and went to the bed, sinking to a crouch next to it instead of sitting next to Harry. "I…believe you're probably fine, as well," he said carefully. "Do you feel any different?"

"Worried. I mean, who wouldn't be? But--" he stopped, perhaps hearing his voice, or catching sight of his own arm or something similar. He stretched out his hand and examined it, turned it over for another look. "Huh. Did you do this?"

"Of course not. You aren't entirely without power here, you know; it's your dream. But it is a dream; sometimes things simply happen. This didn't seem to be intentional."

"I let you run things because you do it better, you have more direct access," Harry said, lifting the sheet to take a look at the parts of him that'd been covered by it.

"I think you're…very nervous about my missing skull," Bob hazarded. He hoped it didn't sound too self-aggrandizing.

"Damn straight I am," Harry sighed, and Bob bit back a correction of Harry's language.

"What specifically are you worried about?" Bob asked gently, and did something he'd desperately wished he could do when Harry was this age--he took Harry's hand, holding it loosely, and stroked it, turning it over to stroke it again, and kiss its palm. As he did so, he felt the slight fingers of Harry's other hand stroking lightly through his hair, and barely kept from melting into the sensation.

He lifted his head again to look at Harry, and was surprised by a soft, gentle kiss on the mouth. It wasn't different than many children exchanged with adults; kissing on the mouth was very common in many parts of the world between family members. No, he was surprised because Harry in particular hadn't--couldn't have--kissed him when he was twelve, in the environment of their relationship with each other, even if it had been physically possible. It was a stupid reason to be surprised, since Harry only looked eleven or twelve at the moment, but it was a human one, so he chose to see it as a hopeful sign rather than an idiotic reaction.

Harry caressed the sides of his face. "About you. We don't know what's going on, what's going to happen--the long and short of it is that I'm afraid to lose you."

"Beloved." Bob moved up onto the bed and Harry wrapped himself around him, face buried in his neck. Bob held him, feeling a thousand things, knowing it was the adult Harry, knowing that in a way, all the Harries that had ever been were still inside the one he currently knew. "My darling, I will not leave you."

"I believe you wouldn't leave on purpose, but--if you'll pardon my saying so, you're not exactly your own man, and if I can't protect you--"

"Sssh." Bob held him close and rocked him gently. "Gently, beloved." He kissed Harry's forehead, and found a temple and a cheek and a full set of lips quickly presented for the same treatment. He kissed each offering warmly, and wrapped Harry close. Harry sat not quite in his lap, with his legs hanging over Bob's, and pressed up against him, wound close with him.

"I wanted this," he whispered. "When I was young enough to look like this. I'd never have admitted it even if I could have had it, but I wanted it."

"I wanted you to have it," Bob said, and having a near-perfect facsimile of a body was a drawback sometimes; his eyes might tear up, and his throat sometimes closed, and this was one of those times. "I always wanted you to have it, from someone, even if not from me, though…to be perfectly frank, that would have been nice. Now, you…um…"

"I do stupid things, looking for--affection and closeness, I know," Harry muttered. "That was part of what you meant when you said my big heart got me into trouble, isn't it?"

"Yes, but only in part. The rest is your determination to help anyone in need that crosses your path; that seems to be inborn."

They were silent for a time, listening to the soft rush of waves against the shore, watching the translucent bed drapes move.

"So, you're here," Harry said, squeezing tighter around Bob's middle.  
"Yes. And possibly vanished to the outside world."

"We can ask the imp."

"He might know, indeed."

"Lie down with me?" Harry moved away a little, tugging at Bob.

"Are you sure you--"

"I'm thirty-seven, Bob," Harry said quietly.

"I know, my darling, but at the moment you're outwardly the boy I…loved, chatted to sleep, rode out adolescent hell with. Though it wasn't the usual chore in your case."

"Didn't you ever want to sleep with me?" The pleading look in those brown eyes telegraphed the rest of the sentence; that Harry had wanted Bob there, holding him at night, sometimes.

"Of course, my love. I stayed with you, often, long after you'd gone to sleep."

Harry smiled, and Bob's facsimile of a heart nearly broke. "And you still do that."

"Yes; I do." Giving in to the logic, he moved up onto the mattress, and spooned Harry up in front of him, enfolding him gently. Harry snuggled back.

They were quiet for a time; Bob didn't know what was going on in Harry's head, but in his own, it was all a time warp to when Harry was a child, when Bob, if a ghost could have done so, would have wept with longing to touch and soothe and protect his charge. He buried his face in Harry's luxuriant hair, and smelled what he could only have imagined, when Harry was this young. "It's idiotic to miss you," he whispered. "You're right here, closer than anyone could possibly be…"

"Bob--" Harry lifted one of Bob's hands to kiss it. "All of me is here. In the full-sized me, I mean. I'm still here. You can still…be with me."

"I know," Bob sighed softly, nodding into Harry's hair. "All of you is present in the current configuration, but not unchanged; and it just doesn't make the same difference to you, now, that it would have made then. You look like this because…" he paused and finished almost inaudibly "…because you're afraid I'm going to leave you."  
Harry curled up tighter.

So did Bob, his hands moving in easing strokes up and down Harry's sides, shoulders, and back. "I would say 'Not this side of death' but even death isn't having much of an effect on my determination to remain near you."

"Never did," Harry mumbled indistinctly into his own knees. "We ought to talk about what's going on--"

"We ought to rest," Bob soothed. "Rather, you ought to. We'll stay right here, for your dreamtime, and…relax."

"I was kind of thinking about skydiving again," Harry said in a tiny voice.

Bob grinned. "You were not."

"Well…maybe next time…" he burrowed back more forcefully against Bob, who rearranged himself to accommodate.

There was a quiet time. Bob felt the slight weight in his arms, the softness of smooth hair against his cheek. Harry had apparently had a sweetish smell as a child. Some part of him had been able to tell, or else Harry remembered, for some reason. He pressed his lips together with the effort not to let his mind get carried away with might-have-beens. After all, if he hadn't been cursed, he'd never have known Harry at all, unless he was one of those wizards who managed to simply not die for an extremely long time, and then he would have seen Harry as a rival--or, worse, the way most wizards saw him; a joke, an exception, a blight on the name of wizardry. Harry would not use his energies toward studying, stealing, and otherwise exercising his tremendous gift to increase his power, turning his attention largely to that and to defense against other wizards. And Harry wouldn't fail to use his remarkable gift to help anyone in need of his special services. Hrothbert of Bainbridge, in his heyday, wouldn't have given a "fool" like Harry a second look, unless it was to determine whether, manipulated properly, this softhearted simpleton--admittedly a simpleton of considerable magical power--could be used for any sort of benefit to Hrothbert.

Of course, Justin Morningway was not interested in Harry because he was his sister's son. He, too, detected the remarkable gift in Harry, more remarkable than even that found in most successful wizards--

and looked what happened with that.

There were some lengths past which one did not push Harry. Perhaps, if he'd known Harry then…

Harry might inherently be the most versatile and powerful wizard Bob, in a dragging nonexistence, had ever encountered; but his gift would never come to its full, terrible, wondrous magnitude--because Harry insisted on using what he knew to help people--and hopefully make some sort of living--instead. He could be persuaded to no other course, despite being raised in his uncle's house, by his uncle's servant.  
Some people were too good for their own good, Bob reflected, exactly as Megare had said. His hand ran gently up and down Harry's back.

He lay listening to the ocean, part of him devoted to the sounds of surf and wind, part to Harry's encephalic state. He might also have been making circuits of the apartment, but in Megare's house, there was no need. Especially not with a killer Irish hearth-imp in attendance.

Harry stirred and murmured something.

"Harry?" Bob murmured.

"Fionn's window," Harry said, yawning, his eyes fixed on the shifting of the hangings.

"I'm familiar with the term," Bob murmured, kissing the edge of Harry's small ear. "I suppose I've gone on about the book of Ballymote as well?"

"Thinking of Cruachan, and his…his 'betwixt and between' thing…" Harry blinked big dark sleepy eyes and rolled over to face upward in the curve of Bob's arm. "I don't mean he's…on purpose or anything, you know, but we were talking about the environments we were exposed to making a difference, mattering in what's…what's happening with us now. I don't want anything to happen to you, but if we can't find your skull…" he rolled to bury his face in Bob's shoulder.

Trying to decipher what sounded like a mid-sentence gearshift, Bob thought; perhaps…Harry seemed to be trying to relate the current state of affairs between the two of them, maybe including the missing skull and maybe not, with the multidimensional perception of the universe that the ancient Irish had.

It wasn't the worst idea.

"Harry…" before he could get Harry's attention, he recognized the signs in his changing brain states that meant Bob should let him rest without dreaming now. Well, drat.

He managed to disentangle himself from Harry without too much fuss, though Harry did cling and whimper, which turned Bob to almost desperate goo. Pulling himself away from Harry as a lonely, reaching child ranked among the hardest things he had ever done, and that included killing himself to end Justin's life and save Harry's, nerve himself up for a necromancy spell that would be his undoing, and a number of other things he'd rather forget. He petted and stroked, whispering "It's all right, my darling," and still felt woefully inadequate. But he had to do it; the visualisation of their touch carried material neurochemical effects. "I'll be right here by your bed. I won't leave you."

"Mm." Harry made a complaining noise into his pillow, but sighed and seemed to go right out.

Bob didn't leave. He thought Harry might be able to tell if he did. Or at least, that was what he told himself.

He leaned on the edge of the bed, seated on the floor, feeling the breeze from the windows, until dawn began to break outside.

* * *

Harry woke to his hair, bare shoulders and back being caressed; he hummed and burrowed deeper into the muscled thighs of an accommodating lap.

"Hmmm," Bob's rich voice caressed his ears. "I hate the thought of your moving from here, but it's two o'clock in the afternoon. Megare has--or will soon have--information to share."

"Mm. If it has to do with her butt, I'm still really, really sorry, and I'll--"

"Her fine small posterior would seem to be quite comfortable; she's walking normally, she visually demonstrated to me the lack of bruising and swelling when I asked after her condition, and she shows no signs of leftover ache. She was, however, smiling a great deal--" Harry could hear the soft smile in Bob's voice, too, "--which is, of course, a common sign of having recently been the subject of a deep healing."

"Even of your butt?" Harry grinned.

"Even of a hangnail. Stop being silly and open your eyes, my darling." Bob wasn't encouraging that with all the stroking, but his next words were galvanizing. "I brought your breakfast."

The smells of food hit Harry at about the same time the ramifications of the touching did, and he was suddenly awake, and he floundered, elbowing Bob in the side. "Oh, shit, sorry--but you're here, I mean, I can touch you, you can touch things--" he grabbed Bob's wrist. The steady pulse under his questing fingers was such a relief he lifted Bob's palm to his mouth and kissed it feelingly. "It's still not a dream," he whispered. "Even a dream with you."

"Harry," Bob breathed tenderly. He lowered his head and rested his cheek lightly against Harry's disordered hair. "My darling."

They stayed like that for a moment, and then Bob lifted his head, squeezed Harry's hand, stroked his back and got up. "I told Megare your favorites," he said in a jovial tone. "It's here on the dresser."

"Well, hey, if it's dead, y'know," Harry started to say, still trying to calm his own heart, but the offhand comment was truncated and he blinked in surprise when a large tray was set on the bed in front of him. Holy cow.

"Eat it all," Bob enjoined him, emphasizing with a pointing finger. "You've hardly stopped draining yourself since we arrived at the Acropolis. Actually you started before then--it took a bit of work on your part just to get us up there in the wee hours of the morning. Everything you've done, except healing Megare, took a good deal more out of you than you could possibly have expected."

"I'm okay. I feel good. Really." The tray was beckoning, though. He didn't recognize some of what was on it, except that it was obviously food, but the waffles and sausage were familiar enough, as was the milk and coffee, and juice he decided to withhold a verdict on until he'd tasted it. Everything flowered and fruited around the Mediterranean, it seemed. Hell, it could be palm leaf juice or something. "Will you let me outta bed long enough to piss first?"

Bob rolled his eyes. "My sensitive darling," he drawled, making Harry cackle. "But then, who can enjoy their breakfast with their thighs clenched? Be my guest. Or, rather, Megare's."

The guest room had its own bath, and Megare had decorated in a graceful style that brought to mind American art deco, but had too many unnamable but definitely old-style touches to quite make the definition. All Harry cared about right then, though, was the toilet, which worked like the toilets he was accustomed to, which was a relief, because every time he came to the continent it seemed like he spent half his time figuring out how to flush the damn things--or worse, exactly how one was supposed to use them in the first place. Then again, there was probably a reason Megare had put them in this suite. Harry had once complained to her (he'd been rather young) about the lack of a warning posted outside the door for the requirement of an engineering degree to figure out how to flush. He supposed that might be the reason for rest-stop attendants in Europe.

When Harry came out--hands washed, Bob would bitch otherwise--Bob was calmly preparing Harry's coffee, pouring from a silver service on a cart, into a cup already provisioned with Harry's usual coffee enhancements. "Aren't you hungry?" Harry wondered; this breakfast, elaborate though it was, didn't seem designed for more than one.

"As a matter of fact, yes. I'm waiting to see if your blood sugar levels will determine mine--or at least counterfeit the effect in me; it may be that I do not need to eat, or even that I can't. This is the first step in finding out. Now stop asking tiresome questions and tuck in."

"Believe me, I plan to eat like a starving rhino." Bob raised a hand to cover a smirk--Harry suspected some interrogative about exactly how starving rhinos ate had been blocked at the last minute. It was possible Bob had picked up some of his own sense of humor.

He sat back down in the bed--there was no other convenient way to get to the tray, where it was placed--and realized that Bob had already buttered his waffles, added syrup, Harry's preferred flavor of preserves, and done everything else Harry usually did when he had the luxury of a breakfast like this. "I guess I can't really complain about you knowing me too well," he said, and stuffed a forkful of waffle in his mouth.

"Stop talking and eat," Bob admonished him gently, caressing his shoulders. "Take your time, but we do need to discuss some things with Megare--and with our surprise guest in the flue."

"Cruach--" the name proved impossible to say without rinsing sticky syrup and preserves out of his mouth with juice (which for the life of him he couldn't identify the source of. Kiwi? Did kiwis grow in Greece?). "Cruachan has an idea about our, uh, situation? Are we totally sure he's a hearth imp?"

"Eat, my darling. Yes, he is a hearth imp. I have never encountered a hobgoblin of a family who memorized the equivalent of, literally, thousands of pages of information--being as the Irish had no easily useable system of writing for much of their history--and who were part of a warrior culture, and fighters themselves, if necessary. There are other parts of the world where a home's goblin would be a fairly formidable creature, but fewer places where said goblin would be a font of knowledge in certain systems of law, magic, and the natural world. As it is, I believe he is an anachronism. Being trapped for so many centuries has made him…well, very possibly, one of a kind--at least in this part of the world. I can't discount whatever he may have learned from Socrates' daimonium--he uses the word 'daimonion', I think."

"So I don't need to expand my definition of hobgoblin to include something that could discourse on the effects of certain botanical extracts on the human circulatory system while simultaneously ripping my guts out."

Bob had to shift quick to keep his cackle from upsetting the tray. "No. I would stake whatever reputation I ever had that most hobgoblins are exactly what you're used to, and that most people never even know one lives in their home. They reap the benefits, or the consequences, in all ignorance."

"Is he like a…does he know everything they did, or what? He seems to know more than…well, than I'd think, in short."

"No. He isn't an informational storage mechanism; he's an imp. But he was created by Druids, who specialized in law, in magic, in healing, in spiritual questions, and other professional matters. And as I said, they memorized it all, and the inhabitants of a house are the largest factor in forming the spirit of a new house."

"That…would make for a well-informed imp."

"Indeed it would, but let us remember that he is not a Druid. Actually he's not even a wizard, a witch, or a village herbwife."

"I have a feeling…" Harry swallowed the last piece of his fresh fruit and said carefully "I don't know--I don't think he knows what would help tell us what's going on. But I think…" he shook his head. "I can't get it."

"Your intuition can be irritatingly vague, but I've found--as I'm sure you have--that's it's--usually, at least--" they both thought of, and quickly dismissed the thought of a young woman being run down by a car just after Harry sensed something wrong with her, something which he could help. "--ahm, poor judgment to ignore it. We'll keep that in mind."

Harry started mopping up his plates and bowls with flatbread. "What's Megare up to?"

"She's been in the library. There is written and printed matter scattered over every horizontal surface near the central table; she seems…intent, but not aggravated."

"I wonder what she's looking for."

"As do I. But I know from experience--my own--what happens when one disturbs a wizard on a hunt for some piece of information or other that will turn an infuriatingly nearly-related collection of facts into a single, purposeful pattern."

Harry smiled. He knew that feeling, too. "Got grumpy when you were disturbed at that?"

"I was known to dactylate the disturbing personage out the door and lock it, without looking up from what I was doing. Sometimes I had to be informed later that I'd done so. Usually by the individual in question."

Harry cackled. "Cranky even when you were alive?"

"Since my sorcerous powers appear to be at least partially intact, I could attempt a demonstration," Bob offered, his throaty voice dropping to its lowest register.

"No, I've been lifted and carried by unseen hands enough in this place. Besides, with the possible exception of the lesser powers and Megare, who seems to have some kind of maternal thing happening with…well, everything--sure as hell with me, ever since I've known her--most wizards are pretty cranky."

"More than that. Most wizards are utterly unfit for decent human company. Currently, you're the only exception I know of to that."

"What about Megare?"

"Milady Megare is, in all ways, above reproach," Bob said stuffily, which did not exactly answer the question, but did lend credence to Harry's notion that Megare's gentle, friendly flirting with Bob, even though he was a ghost, had won her a permanent spot in his good graces.

Harry dropped the subject, and leaned back, exhaling hugely. "I am stuffed."

"Yes, you are," Bob said, blinking. "I don't think I feel…stuffed--it's been a very long time--but I'm not hungry any more, either, and my first inclination is to lie down and digest--as if I'd actually eaten. The chemical changes in your body, your neurological state, obviously."

"I'll have some more coffee; maybe that'll help. I'm pretty sure that's what it's for, aside from general wake-up."

"Wizard Dresden!" boomed the room.

The silver coffee service cart was nearly knocked over; via frantic scrambling on both their parts, Harry and Bob saved everything from messy meets with the bed and the carpet, not to mention themselves. When all was stable, Bob rested a hand against Harry's thumping chest, as Harry did the same with Bob; he wondered if it was an instinctive soothing mechanism with everybody, placing a hand over a pounding heart, or just something of his that Bob was picking up. "Hi, Cruachan," Harry quavered, smiling uncertainly. There had to be a way to teach that imp some manners. Then he listened to what he'd just thought--teaching an imp manners--and wondered if he was finally losing it. Anyway, Cruachan had impeccable manners for his native time and place. He just wasn't adjusting at warp speed to his new surroundings, and Harry doubted he would have, either. Cruachan was used to remaining invisible and inaudible, in his home's heart or elsewhere in it; Megare's fireplaces were doing well enough as a resting place for him, but this was not his home. They'd be seeing a lot more of him than his actual family did.

Cruachan bounded through various stages of visibility next to the bed, around the room, and back; flashes of giant silverwhite needle piranha teeth bared in a grin here, weird fuzzy absence of light there, an impression of absence of material reality itself in a vague, round, huge cartoon cat-shape over there…finally the eyes, slanted ovals of pure glowing red, stopped next to the bed, near the top of the odd, vertigo-inducing shifting that was all one could see of Cruachan in full light, or at least all they'd seen of him so far that way. Well, except for the claws. Those six-inch claws were often visible when nothing else was, unless Cruachan didn't want them to be.

"I am gratified to see that you seem rested and well," Cruachan boomed, explaining his exuberance. "I have been exceedingly concerned for you, seeing as much of the drain on your energy and magical power was due to my rescue, which you did not even intend to perform. I feared you might harbor some resentment."

"Cru, no, I'm glad we got you loose from there. The freaking Acropolis is no place for a millenia-old Irish spirit. I'd like to find Socrates' little friend and kick his ass for him."

"It has been long enough that I no longer harbor resentment for that; undoubtedly he assumed I would perform a similar trick, since there was a loophole in the binding that allowed for such substitutions, but…"

"But you, personally, wouldn't do that to anyone," Bob said softly. "It would not be honorable."

"That is correct," the slanted glowing red ovals said stiffly, much more softly than Cruachan's usual boom. "As I mentioned during our conversation while Wizard Dresden slept, we were very different sorts of creatures, and he was far more…sophisticated than I. Hercules, dumb as a rock, all that."

"You aren't dumb, Cru, you're like Bob said, honorable. Honest people have been getting shafted since the first asshole appeared in the world. And sophisticated my ass," Harry said, moving the tray so he could get up. "Can you guys wait while I get a shower?"

"Of course, my darling. Your clothing suitcase is outside the bathroom door, and your toiletry case is on the counter."

"As I've said before, I'd be a stumbling dumbfuck without you, some days," Harry managed, burping and scratching his way back into the bathroom. That he was going to have to get used to getting along without Bob in the capacity of assistant and valet, if things went as they all hoped, went unsaid, but both of them were thinking it.

The door closed behind him, and Bob began straightening the leavings. Cruachan was silent a moment, then said "He is very young."

"He is a very well-grown man. I--and you--are very old," Bob corrected him, placing the breakfast tray on a lower shelf of the coffee service cart.

"You have known him since his childhood," Cruachan continued, in a musing tone. How he did that, Bob wasn't sure, but he suspected it had less to do with the tone and more to do with the intent of the words. "He has the heart of a healer. He would have been a Druid, in my homeland."

"And me?" Bob asked, raising an eyebrow and smiling. "What do you see me as, if I'd been born in your mortal timespace?"

"Difficult to say, with you," Cruachan said. "You are very fair; people so blond were considered quite attractive. But I would not find it hard to see you as an arbiter--a Druid concerned with legal

matters--"

"I know the distinctions between classes of Irish druid," Bob said--not shortly, but only to inform Cruachan that he didn't have to clarify.

"I can also see you as a sacrificer," Cruachan pondered, "for you have the ability to disengage your emotions, kill the animal cleanly and painlessly, and perform the necessary rites. In human sacrifice, you would have made sure, again, that there was no pain or fear. Your ability to detach from your sympathies at need would, contrary as it may sound, give you the ability to ease any fear, using your own aptitudes as well as the drugs that were commonly used to prevent the sacrifice from feeling pain, or dying while conscious. Of course, human sacrifice was extremely rare, but--"

"I think I understand," Bob interrupted gently. That Harry would have had the gift of healing and preserving life with the least pain and fear possible, and he himself would have had the gift of taking life with the least pain and fear possible, did not surprise him, but it did depress him, for some odd reason.

"I apologize. I have given you unwelcome information," Cruachan said, still not booming.

"No. You've told me nothing I didn't know already," Bob said briskly, moving the cart toward the door.

"If I may add to my comments," Cruachan offered quickly, "I would say that you would have made an equally good bard, if you chose to pursue the Druidic path."

Bob blinked, stopped and turned. "A bard?"

"You have the physical musculature to endure much travel, even in inclement weather, carrying an instrument. Quite certainly you have the necessary richness of voice, the dexterity of hand, the intelligence for composition, and the interest in the beauty of the way information is couched in bardic manner. May I also add," the hobgoblin added, "your…worldview, shall we say, would have made you a marvelous satirist."

Bob smirked. A satirist was a subcategory of bard, who composed material upon those who dishonored themselves, someone else, or were general lowlifes by the standards of the times--refusing hospitality was one major way to become satirized, hospitality being a sacred duty. It wasn't the worst punishment that could be levied against a citizen--that would be exclusion from Druid-conducted seasonal observances--but being satirized, in ancient Ireland, was to be made far worse than a laughingstock. It was the nearest thing to an outcast in any tribe, since the bards traveled, and the people loved satirizations. One could easily lose one's livelihood over it. Bob remembered the story of a young girl whose father had been told that if she ever gave birth, the child would kill him, so he raised her in a tower in the wilderness, with no one seeing her but her parents and a banDruid--a Druidess--who discovered the secret, and "…who was a satirist, and so could be denied nothing". The parents had feared the bard woman's satirization more than they'd feared the father's death.

He turned and bowed to where Cruachan was. "A good satirist was a force to be reckoned with indeed," he smiled. "Thank you for crediting me with the necessary skills."

"I have a feeling," Cruachan said, "that if any dishonor was done to Wizard Dresden, the perpetrator would not have been able to remain in Eriu at all."

"For several reasons," Bob nodded, smirking, and turned to take the cart out.


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the characters and I don't own this story.

**_LOUD AND CLEAR! I DO NOT, HAVE NOT AND WILL NOT EVER OWN THIS STORY!_**

**This story is the property of Tang Guangzhen who was kind enough to give me permission to post this here. Any flames about that will be used to fry your ass.**

**Thank You**

* * *

"'Cerridwen's cauldron is in Annwn,'" Megare declaimed, reading from a recently published book. Recently, at least, compared to the huge, ancient tomes, the scrolls in all manner of states of repair, codices and monographs that densely occupied the broad, polished wooden tables in the library. She continued "'Under the whirlpool, below the sea, across the sea, over the sea, under the sea, over the hill, between one thought and the next, between everything and betwixt every between.'" 

Harry was sitting in a bay window seat; it couldn't have been real, this being basically an underground mansion, but Megare had done a marvelous job with the illusory aspects. His eyes locked with Bob's, as they both remembered the offhand comment Harry'd made in their dream last night. "Betwixt and between," Harry murmured. "Not like, feeling confused--it sounds like…it's the feeling I get from Cruachan."

"That is it, that is exactly," Megare said, whirling to point at Harry, making her long red woolen skirt flare. "I think you do not communicate with beautiful not-so-dead man, you do not send, do not receive--I think you are on the same…the same…" she sighed and slumped into a leather-padded hardwood chair at one of the vast, polished wooden tables. "Is why I look for what I mean, then try to find in new book, after I find in old book. To make easy to understand. My English…"

"It's not only your English, Megare," Bob said gently, laying a hand on her shoulder. "We understand that you don't communicate that well by verbalization--your ability to communicate with almost anyone, or anything, nonetheless, notwithstanding."

She quirked her mouth, looking up and sideways at him. "I make to look Greek so no one stares. Perhaps is wasted on you, as to most deceiving." She sighed.

"You make to look Greek?" Harry wondered.

"This face, this body," she said offhandedly, waving a listless hand at her general person. She did look Mediterranean, at least--quite beautiful, with olive skin; heavy, fine, straight black hair; full lips; large brown eyes; and a proud nose. Her face was heart-shaped, with prominent, slanting cheekbones.

"That's not what you really look like?" Harry puzzled. "I've never sensed anything…"

"I have looked like for so long is nothing now to sense, Harry. But. I find new translation--translations--of older words in these--" she indicated the literary accumulations across the tables. "I could not make English of, of words, of language so old."

"We do speak a number of different languages," Bob offered.

"Bob speaks a number of different languages that would be useful here," Harry said. "I speak most of the magical languages in question, but as far as translating ancient to modern…you'd have to ask Bob."

"This is why I look for modern translations. Is danger in being, sometimes, translations of translations of translations--" she made fluid yadda-yadda gestures with both hands, "--words are twisted, by translator, by time--but I know from where. You see?"

"You can follow the paths of the translations," Bob said. "So that if something dead-ends, or becomes nonsensical--or, if it becomes entirely inaccurate--you can backtrack."

"Yes, very good," Megare nodded. "Backtrack. I have found some new things, things I can show, read to you."

"Please," Bob said, with a short nod-bow in her direction. "Let us not delay you any longer."

She got up to lean across the breadth of the table she was sitting at, grabbing ineffectually for a book that was out of her reach, which Harry hopped up and pushed into her grasp.

"Thank you, sweet Harry. Here…"

"The book of Ballymote," Harry said, raising his eyebrows. "Fionn's window."

"Your intuition is indeed uncanny, my darling," Bob observed, taking a few casual steps to reach over and trace a line down Harry's back. Harry controlled a shiver and gave Bob a "later" look. Bob smiled a bit smugly, but desisted.

The "sun" was at their backs, shining through the huge bay windows, and their own shadows controlling the light level made the pages easy to decipher, though they were handwritten and recopied.

"That's Book of Ballymote 313--and that's it, Fionn's window," Harry said, pointing. "Most of the rest of that are different systems of Ogham."

"With a few exceptions," Bob said, indicating a number of other diagrams and notations. "But yes, that's it."

"I know why I point out. Why do you?" Megare asked.

"I was dreaming with Harry last night, and as he was easing into a less active sleep state, he mentioned both Fionn's window and the words 'betwixt and between'. That's far too much to be a coincidence, but Harry has a deeply sensitive feel for some things--he may simply have encountered the fact, as his mind wandered the various ethereal planes, that you were going to show us these things today."

"Or could mean something?"

"That is possible as well, but we shouldn't jump to conclusions. Incidentally, where is Cruachan? He might be able to help with this, though he's probably illiterate."

"He does not like wall in east wing. Support wall, he says. He fix it, or make stronger, if he cannot all fix. I wait to see," Megare said, shrugging. "Look here." She shoved the book of Ballymote out of the way and pulled a more recent publication in front of them. "This shows--" she held her hands out, as though pulling something apart. "Stretched, looking from the side."

"An exploded depiction of Fionn's window, yes," Bob said, and leaned over her shoulder to look. He noted the publication information and made a face. "I do not trust this author, nor this publisher. This house promulgates disinformation in the interests of profit. Not only that, the author used 'The White Goddess', a self-admitted twisting of history, as a source of--"

"Not to read whole book! Just look at picture."

Bob made a harrumphing sound, which made Harry turn his head away to hide his grin.

"See," she said, pointing. "Fionn's window is end-on view. This is side-on. I am right to say that way?"

"Yes, that's how it's put," Bob said.

The image was a foreshortened square divided into four smaller squares, each labeled; lines from the divisions converged into a foreshortened circle, also divided into four sections. The lines continued down, spreading out again to meet the corners of another foreshortened square, once again divided into four sections. Each section of the three levels was labeled in what Harry assumed was Irish, this being (ripped off with whatever degree of accuracy) from the Book of Ballymote. Unfortunately, Druidic magic was not a system he was familiar with. He knew elements common to most systems existed in it, but since all of Ireland's recorded history had been done by monks in monasteries in Latin (though the monks and the Irish church, an almost autonomous organization for centuries from Rome, were actually quite accurate in the works) and then burned to the last scrap by the English who were busy destroying all Irish literature, one had to wonder what was truly Druidical in nature and what was pieced together.

Next to it, the same figure was represented, but without the labeling; instead, ogham fews in different numbers and angles extended from the lines that connected the three flat plains--square, round, and square again. "This is significant," Megare announced. "Paths around and through."

"Indeed," Boomed the room's fireplace, and everybody lost it briefly, trying to keep all the loose paper from becoming airborne. "I am named after such a place--a path around, a path through. There are many such places in Eriu. Forgive me: Ireland. Though the name 'Cruachan' is also that of the stronghold of Connaght."

Harry collapsed on the window seat where he'd been, getting his breath back more quickly this time. "How's the wall?" he asked, buying time for Bob to steady Megare, who had been holding two tomes which, together, approached massing what she did.

"I have done what I can. I am sure Wizard Megare can shore up anything I might have missed; it is not my house," Cruachan managed to boom sadly. "Wizard Megare, I apologize for being unable to repair it entirely."

"You are a hearth imp," Megare said wryly. "You think a bomb hits and the house falls--you did something wrong. The supporting wall is good. But I am glad you are here; we have questions."

"I will provide any service I can, of course; you and yours have freed me from a particularly vile imprisonment. Can you imagine being a house spirit bound to a ruin, and not permitted to improve, protect or defend it? And, far most importantly, with no residents to assist and safeguard? Or to leave offerings," he added, sounding a bit sulky.

"Ick," Harry said feelingly. He hadn't thought of that. Being trapped for who knew how many centuries was bad enough, but schist. "That must've just really sucked. Past the usual unwilling bondage to a place thing, I mean."

"If I take your tone of voice correctly, yes, it did."

"Oh, by all means, feel free to work with his tone of voice. Sometimes it's the only way to communicate with him," Bob muttered, glancing out the nearest window, where there was a view of a small but deep lake, surrounded by trees, that Megare said was not far from the right door to the surface. Harry gave him a very-funny smirk. Bob had been hassling him about his vocabulary since he was eleven.

"Cruachan," Megare said--she never had any trouble pronouncing his name--asked "Clever imp, you are Irish, you are not Brit, but do you know Brythonic story?"

Cruachan appeared as his usual shifting in the air, across from Megare. His eyes were not only visible, but glowing more brightly. "I fear I do not know anything of depth, but I am versed in the basics."

"You wear translation. Say anything, anything in…Cymric, I might know of."

His grin that appeared out of the air (and could still put Harry on the verge of wetting his pants until he remembered it was just a grin) showed up. "I shall do my best, Wizard Megare." The grin moved no more than ever when Cruachan spoke.

"Grant, oh divine, thy protection,

and in protection, strength; and in strength,

understanding, and in understanding,

knowledge; and in knowledge,

the knowledge of justice; and in the knowledge of justice,

the love of justice--and in that love, the love of all beings;

and in the love of all beings, the love of the divine, for they

are one and the same."

Bob had risen slowly. "That's the Druid Invocation at the Thirteen Stones. How do you know it?"

"I am what you call Goidelic Celt; but not entirely ignorant of the Brythonic. At least…in my home, there was such knowledge."

Megare applauded softly. "Very good. You will be great help. I show these two why they are like they are--if I am right. That is what we find. I show them connections which are not connections; connections which are perfect communication, already knowing--perfect travel, already being there. You will help me?"

"Of course, if I can."

"Then do you have something to do with that, milady Megare?" Bob inquired politely. "It's true we encountered you and Cruachan at near to the same time on this trip. I don't think we can afford to ignore the possibility that your…unusual affinity with communication other than the verbal may be associated with Harry's and my current situation."

"Such as not knowing where Bob's skull is?" Harry grumped. "Did you find anything, Cru?"

"As you have described the noncorporeal signs to me--I fear not. I would detect a magical treasure of such power even asleep in my own chimney, were it in any part of a house even temporarily in my charge. Perhaps you and Wizard Megare will have greater fortune."

"Okay, here," Harry said, getting up, "why does it matter that Cruachan has some familiarity with Brythonic Celtic? Welsh, in this case, right?"

"Cymric," Megare said, for her, rather sharply, and fairly clearly.

"Sorry. Cymric." Harry smiled in genuine apology, and she couldn't help but smile back.

"Not important. Only that there are--is--were--sensing of the world which is not a sensing of this, of that, of ties between them--but a sensing of them as the same to begin with. Do you see? Perhaps he can help explain. Hear what he said, the Druid invocation; it did not say that one quality leads to another, but that one is inherent in another, and all are inherent in each other, yes?"

"Yeah, I got that," Harry nodded. He was interested, but the itch of Bob's missing skull was making him impatient, though he did his best to hide it. Megare was doing everything she could to help them, which was more than one could expect from most--practically any--wizards, unless there was something in it for them, too.

"In Ireland too," Cruachan said stentorily (as per usual), "when delving into the legends and lore, one is struck by the omnipresence of the Otherworld--the Celtic definition of it, that is. At any time, in the most unexpected places, the Otherworld can break through and envelop some hapless hero, carry the poor man or woman off to a parallel plane. I imagine it's actually quite inconvenient. Were my people heroes and not Druids, I would have cautioned them against approaching certain raths, springs, mounds, hills, and the like. Not that they would have listened." They were treated to the sound of Cruachan sounding disgusted. "Celtic heroes were brave and mighty, but had a bit left to be desired in the common sense department."

Harry dropped his head and chuckled.

Bob was pacing slowly, his arms folded, tapping the fingers of one hand on the other elbow, looking distant. "The concept does come very close to the ideas of certain physicists, regarding the presence of other physical, geometrical dimensions coexisting in a parallel reality with our own perceived human dimensions." He nodded at the disturbance in the air with red eyes that currently represented Cruachan. "Our friend here travels between many of them quite freely, where we would be at a loss even to visualize such a geometrical space. Humans, wizards or otherwise, would simply have to work with what we knew was there, and trust our knowledge--"

"Fly blind?" Harry asked quietly.

"In short, yes. We have no direct senses, and no means of direct access to or through these planes, naturally present in us. It would be similar to--expanding on your analogy--being confined to instrumental flight rules, rather than being able to use VFR."

Megare said "But some humans did work with such things, yes? The Celts of all sorts, once the culture had become…" she struggled a moment, frowning, as everyone tried to think of a word that might help, but before they could come up with anything, she came out with "…become enough similar, those that reached the islands. Those Celts that reached the west of Europe as well, but mostly the first I say, the islanders."

"Yes, the Druids certainly understood how to work with such things, and the various Celtic peoples seemed to have an innate understanding of the cosmological view--ability to actually walk through dimensional portals or not. The question is how we get an innate understanding of it, and then, if we can, figure out how to do something along those lines--at least well enough to verify what's happened to us, exactly," Harry pointed out. "We're trapped here until we do. I won't leave if it means anything might…" happen to Bob, of course, but that didn't need saying--everyone heard it.

"I may be of assistance," Cruachan offered, "but I would urge caution. I am not human, nor a Druid; you of wizardly persuasion--particularly Wizard Megare--would have to provide the plans, and instruct me carefully. I would not wish to injure any of you."

"No, we don't want that either, Cru, don't worry," Harry said, smiling at the clawed miasma that was somehow managing to project concern. "Don't be worried about that. No one will blame you for anything."

"That is not what concerns me," Cruachan grumped.

"Very good then, beautiful not-so-dead man, we must begin to find a way to find a way," Megare said firmly.

Bob grinned at her, bowing deeply over her hand. "I am at your service, madam, as always."

"What about me?" Harry wondered.

"Oh, we'll need you and Cruachan as well," Bob said offhandedly. "It's simply that Megare and I have…well. We've a great deal more experience than either of you in general, and I suspect--" he cut his eyes sideways to a wide-eyed, fake-innocence-projecting Megare, "--that our charming hostess knows many of the magical and physical facts Cruachan--who operates in these other dimensions on instinct, not by created and deliberate design--would not be able to adequately describe in a fashion we could use to create the necessary spells and energies."

"I'm sorry I asked. Okay, I'm the gopher," Harry smiled easily. "When it comes down to it, I do trust you guys a lot more than myself in something like this; you're right, you've…oh, you know. Been around a while."

"I think that is his way of saying we are aged and feeble," Megare said, raising her eyebrows.

"No, no, really, I mean you're wizards after all, and Bob's been dead--and you're totally fucking with my head, aren't you," he suddenly yelled, grinning and charging Megare to swing her up in his arms, threshold-carry fashion this time.

"You are so easy, sweet Harry," she sighed, rolling her eyes. Cruachan's teeth flashed terrifyingly and affectionately, and Bob was half doubled over controlling his laughter.

"I'll get you guys," Harry muttered.

"We're quite sure you will, my darling," Bob said, annoyingly patronizing, yet with the soft note in his rich voice that made Harry go all wobbly. Fortunately he remembered to put Megare down this time.

* * *

"How long are you going to be up here?" Bob asked quietly, as he stopped a few paces away. It was full dark; there was some light pollution near the horizon, but the zenith of the sky was dark and clear. Harry was sitting on a rock at the edge of that small, deep lake Megare had recreated so beautifully as a view from her library windows.

"Not sure," Harry said, throwing a rock out across the water. In the distance there was a soft plunk.

"It's not kind to Megare, you know. The actual location of her home is a secret to almost every magical personage alive, and you--"

"Do you see me calling down a storm?" Harry asked, turning in the dark to where he knew Bob was. The crescent moonlight glinted off that silver-bright blond hair. "I can, if you want."

"I know. I taught you how."

"You taught me the basics." Harry began juggling three little balls of werelight; he'd learned juggling early, from his father, of course. The little lights blurred into a cascading five-light pattern that was unbelievably intricate, too fast to follow. "Bob, you are the person I know the best and care about most in the world, and I am therefore gonna be a major, major asshole to you right now if you don't get the hell away before I get even worse, so go. Now. That's not a request."

"Harry…" Bob sighed. "I can go back inside, but there's only so far I can go from you, and you'd probably best try to relax about it, as it might take a bit to find out--"

"I hate that, Bob! So I thought I'd come out here and…" he sighed, muscles going loose, head lolling on his shoulders. "…and be a bastard to the fish, I guess. Big help." The little lights plopped one by one into the lake, fizzing out, probably not even waking the fish.

"You want me to be free," Bob said softly, "but you're feeling that your own freedom is in jeopardy--at least in the back of your mind, where you've shoved that thought so you don't have to look at it. Makes one feel a bit selfish, doesn't it?"

"Ah, Bob--" Harry broke off, slumping, running his fingers up over his scalp, hiding his face. "I just--the whole thing is--"

"Harry--my darling--" Bob touched his shoulder, and Harry shivered. Bob began to pet him, as he'd been doing since becoming (in whatever way, and whether in dream or waking life) material. An embrace might have been too much for Harry to take, might have felt confining enough to make him pull away, but this only made him slump back against the source of the soothing, rhythmic touch.

Bob murmured "It's all right. You only wanted a bit of room to breathe…I'm sorry I can't give you much of that right now."

"But it's only been a couple of days! Why…why?" he finished, looking the question up at Bob.

"Because you know that unless we can find out what's happened, our choices will be either my destruction, or your permanent joining to me. I can get a good deal farther from you than I could from the skull, at least, which I find a relief, but I can see how that might not be good for much cheering up to the one in your position."

"Greetings, Wizards," boomed the nearby trees, sending them both right over in surprise. Birds in the trees in question squawked and rustled.

"Shit on toast," Harry mumbled, making Bob stifle a laugh as they got back upright from their now-horizontal positions, off the rocks and in, thank providence, the grass, not the lake. "Hi, Cru," he called. "Let me guess. Megare says it's time for us boys to come inside now."

"Wizard Megare has news," Cruachan said, and they could see his slanted red eyes, grinning teeth, and flashing claws bouncing around the dark, forested area; it looked like a trailer for a horror movie (except with no blood), and by now they had learned it indicated great good spirits on Cruachan's part. "We have completed the first part of the puzzle! Not to minimize the Wizard of Bainbridge's contribution, of course. Or yours, Wizard Dresden--"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever, does this mean she can unhook us without it killing Bob? Or…" Harry swallowed. "…worse?" Bob was lifting him effortlessly by the elbow. Stars, he was strong. This one, at least. Though the one Harry saw in the dreams looked like he'd been an athlete, too. "I mean--if we just…unbind him from me, without his skull, he'll…"

"I'll simply die, Harry," Bob said gently, "as I would have, on being executed centuries ago. I would not fear it, save that it would part me from you."

Harry reached for Bob in the dark and hung on.

There was a still moment, and then Harry backed up a bit, locking eyes with Bob, begging the question in the faint light--he could feel his own eyes filling, and hoped it wasn't obvious, and hoped Bob would say the thing he needed to hear--and then damned himself for hoping it, knowing what Bob would say, knowing what it would entail, and prayed he'd say the opposite, though he might not be leaving alone. Bob was his only family, in every way. Harry's life had never been, and aside from Bob was not now, such a meaningful and spectacular thing that it needed to continue--with him all, all alone, searching, failing to find, failing again. Helping people would be all he had. How long could only giving be enough?

"Oh, darling," Bob breathed, pulling him in close; Harry's head fell to his shoulder as he hid his face in Bob's neck. Bob cradled him with an arm around his waist and one hand threading through his hair. "Don't, don't look like that, I can't bear it. I don't…I don't know. I have learned a great deal. As you say…" he smiled into Harry's shoulder. "I do have a way with life, death, and the states which are neither, precisely. If there were any way--and there may be--I would not leave you. But I will not take the power of a living soul to give earthly life to one dead and crossed over, ever again."

Harry managed to lift his head, remembering they weren't alone. Cruachan had stopped bouncing, and his teeth were not in evidence. His claws weren't either, but Harry wasn't sure if that meant anything. In the darkness, he could be tracked--barring sorcerous help--only by his eyes, which were stationary at about Bob's waist level. "I had hoped the news would be more welcome," he said, controlling his voice. Sometimes he remembered; sometimes he didn't. "I beg you to consider that the specifics of the Wizard of Bainbridge's 'curse' are new to me; we had only the single discussion on the subject, mostly on how it affected the way the curse was controlling the raw material it was receiving from Wizard Dresden."

Harry raised his head. "Bob, he's right--I assumed you were…material, or…something, that just because you seem to weigh what a man your size would, and you're so strong, it couldn't be me that--I wanted it to mean you were a real human being. But you don't need to eat--at least, not as long as I do every now and then--you don't, uh--"

"No, I don't, at least not yet."

"And when we, uh, when you, erm--"

"Yes, that seems to be the curse capitalizing on what's available as well," Bob said, smiling and stroking Harry's back.

"So that's it, really," Harry muttered. "The curse has changed--somehow, something--you're attached to me, a living man, not to a skull, and so now the specifics of the curse are creating a far more complete simulacrum of a human. But you aren't. Aren't…human--physically, I mean--" he hastened to finish, but Bob caught his shoulders very gently.

"No," he said, softly. "Not truly human. But I am still fortunate beyond any reasonable expectation."

"This is part of what Wizard Megare wishes to discuss," Cruachan boomed, taking the opportunity to jump in. There was a panicked rustling all around; then, sensing no predators, disgruntled day creatures crawled back into their dens and frazzled nocturnal ones got over their fright and continued their business, and Harry desperately tried to keep from laughing his ass off. Only a pinch from Bob, who was also fighting a grin, saved him.

* * *

"News is good, and news is not so good. My lovely not dead lord of Bainbridge, I think your skull is…"

"Gone," Bob sighed, slumping in the chair he'd collapsed into after they came inside. Cruachan had conducted them to a sitting room off of Megare's own bedroom; she was wearing a red satin nightgown that, speaking in terms of skin coverage, was modest enough, and it didn't seem to occur to her that either of them would give a damn what she was wearing. She had books, papers, and scrawled notes scattered across a low, heavy, mahogany coffee table; a fire burned in the fireplace--how did she keep this place so well hidden when it had so many chimneys?--and Cruachan was comfortably ensconced therein, his eyes glowing happily.

"What you said, Harry, that it--came apart--"

"He asked rather sarcastically if it'd suddenly lost its molecular cohesion," Bob supplied, while Harry, sitting on the floor, leaning against his leg and the overstuffed chair, gave him a look.

"It wasn't sarcasm," he muttered. "It was panic. I was a little worked up at the time, as you may recall."

"What you have been doing--the dreaming, I mean--must be part of it, must be why there is connection at all," Megare continued, poking a particular open codex closer to them with one small bare foot. "There is no record of it exactly that I can locate--and I can locate many, many things--but I am of the opinion--here, look, this one, and these…"

"Of course," Bob said finally, nodding slowly as he caught up with her thought process.

"I'm kind of young here," Harry said, waving exaggeratedly for attention.

Bob said "Forgive us, Harry. If, after taking the specifics of the curse and the spells that would be necessary, the power and where its source would be, one may extrapolate from what happened in these three cases--you see here in the first one, in which the instrument of entrapment, a heirothica, was damaged, but not destroyed, by some creature; it's recorded here as a catoblepas--" Bob rolled his eyes, "--though I doubt that rather strongly--they were chimeras of Ethiopian derivation, and I believe Pliny first described the--"

"Nobody's young enough for this."

Megare lowered her head to hide a smirk. Harry's tension was not funny, but Bob's verbosity was.

"I'm sorry," Bob said, smiling sourly at his own ability to digress, and stroking Harry's hair and shoulders. "In short--though we will be going over the specifics later; this involves things you need to know--the purpose for the preservation spells on my skull ceased to exist--the skull's purpose itself had been transferred to you. With nothing to…maintain it's portion of the curse, it literally fell to dust. Human bone simply doesn't last that long without some form of preservation. Certainly not being dragged from pillar to post for centuries and ending up bouncing along in a satchel, even on the back of an exquisite young man."

"Well I know that--um," Harry finished, hearing the last part through his impatience, and grinned briefly at the floor. "Don't do that to me. Okay, so…we did something that there's no record of, but it's not like we made a record of it. Because there's no record doesn't mean it never happened. Neither of us would ever have told anyone that I would allow you to do that--it might give them ideas about me, about what they could use me for..."

"You say to me," Megare pointed out, sipping from her wine glass. They were all similarly served with the wine and substantial, nutritious hors d'ouvre trays Megare seemed to favor over sit-down dinners, but so far she was the only one partaking, and she was only picking at her food. Her wine was going down a little faster, at about the same rate as the frown lines on her smooth forehead deepened.

Harry was quiet a moment, and so was Bob, and Harry finally said very softly "Well, Megare…it's only you."

"And it was only me," Bob pointed out sharply. "Harry, you are too trusting, you have always been too trusting."

"I didn't let Megare in my brain, in my mind--I only told her it happened, and only when it became something of what you have to admit is an emergency. I've known Megare since I was, what, fifteen, sixteen, something."

"And you knew Justin even longer than that," Bob growled.

Harry stood and turned on them. "What are you guys trying for here, anyway? Are we gonna work on this, or are we gonna talk about how I'm the kind of grinning dink you could sell a perpetual motion machine to?"

Bob sighed. "You have a point. That's an argument for another time; our situation now is more important."

"Indeed," Megare said. "Is very important. You cannot leave here as you are, and there is no skull now to even try to fix you back with."

"Wait--if there's no skull, why can't we leave? Except for the--well, isn't he bound to me now? That would matter, in terms of…other people…monitoring the state of his…binding. He's still bound."

"He is bound to you," Megare said, "because you partly took place of skull, in some of parts that matter. I know some about Brythonic universal view. You bring him, there, imp sitting with his big fuzzy behind in my fire--" (Cruachan grinned a moment at this) "--and he knows some more, about some different things, but similar. With Bob, and me, and all of us--Harry, we are upset because…it was close. It was close that I thought in time, it was close that I was watching, thinking of you because you were coming to the continent, it was close--you are very, very lucky this happened when it did," she said, staring him right in the eyes and speaking very clearly--it sounded odd coming from her, unless she was talking to Bob; it made one pay attention, especially when her deep, rumbly-to-clear voice went even deeper like that.

Harry got up and went to sit next to her on the couch she was half-reclining on. She bent her knee to make room, then straightened her leg, just propping it across his lap instead of rearranging herself. He rested a hand on it absently and continued "Why is it so lucky?" His voice was quiet and careful. "I get that you were watching me, you were available when I called you--and thanks for the cell number when I turned twenty one, by the way. I bet there isn't a service in the world that could trace you, or knows how you fit in to their switching systems."

"There's not, and it is lucky because--since what you have been doing, this would have happened eventually, yes? But you were here, and no one will find you here. I do not know if your Council in Chicago know the skull is gone. I do not know if they know if not-dead man is still contained by curse. But my thought is they may know both things. They may be finding where you went--not hard to trace, even for the non-sorcerous. But they will not find you here."

"Megare is as old as I am, at least," Bob said quietly. "Including my time spent…less substantial than I am now. Or older; I've never had the poor manners to ask. But I do know that the Council we deal with has no power over her, though they know of her existence; in fact, I know of no Council that considers her under their jurisdiction, nor that she considers to have any authority over her. They are all annoyed that they cannot control her…but they do not particularly fear her--at least, they never have. They do not regard her as a threat, which is unusual; Wizard's Councils generally regard anything they do not control as a threat."

Megare shrugged and had another slug of wine. "I am not a threat," she said. "I live my life. I do my help here, my changes there. I harm no one. But biggest reason they do not fear me? I am dead, most believe. Some believe I may be alive, are not sure. But none know, for certain true, that I live."

"It probably took many centuries--I won't speculate any farther than that--for the oldest and most powerful wizards to realize that Megare, despite being very powerful, and--judging by her ability to accomplish new things that no one could track or explain, was apparently working to expand that power-- seemed never to do it in any manner that could be construed as…dishonorable, even for the mundane race of humanity."

Megare nodded toward Bob. "Thank you, beautiful not-so-dead man. When they realized I was a fool and an unreasoning idealist, they put me in the same category as tornados and shark attacks. Never know; if it hits, problem, but odds are it will not. Then I plan my own death. They stop worrying much at all. The end."

Harry was staring at her. "Uncle Justin doesn't…I never…we didn't talk about you, and I never thought it was weird at the time, because I loved you, I couldn't talk about you enough with Bob. But I never…he didn't send me to see you. While I was in Europe the first time--it was you."

Bob nodded. "Megare contacted me; we arranged your visit here. Afterward, I told Justin we had met with Megare, in a location of her choice--I could lie to him so long as I did not technically break the truth; that's very easy to do with an egomaniac, they never suspect--and that I learned nothing significant from the meeting. After all, I was supposedly almost completely disempowered at the time. To forestall his further queries--and threats--I told him Megare had surprised us, which would not, by that time, surprise him; and that I knew nothing more of her now than I had before I met her, save what she currently looked like, which was already known. I also dropped a few technically-true hints about the false death she was arranging at the time."

Harry smiled at Megare. "He probably thought you tried to subvert me--take advantage of my disgraceful bloodline."

"I did," Megare said, and finished the wine in her glass. Harry reached for the bottle, and she held the glass out for him to fill, continuing "I hoped what we talked about might make things easier for you, help you with your uncle, without getting you in trouble, and without your losing…you. The soul I saw in you." She smiled a little, then sipped from the glass. "I am sorry I lacked the power to…arrange a way to take you from him, then. But so much depends on circumstance."

"Still…you told me to contact you if I needed you--if I felt like the…the soul-searching was all too much."

"That would have been through me," Bob interjected with a gentle smile. "We did have a plan for that much."

"So, you spelled me not to mention you to Uncle Justin--to blank you out when it came to him, give programmed responses," Harry eyed Megare. "And I know you did the responses thing, because I don't remember any of it."

She shrugged again, nodding a mea culpa. "Sorcerous hypnotic suggestion. It did not change your memories--only added some things about what you would say to Justin Morningway. Morningway, that--that--" she whirled, hair flying, and spat into the fireplace, then immediately looked horrified. "Imp! I am sorry, very sorry, not used to people in my fireplace. Especially with fire in it. Very sorry, helpful imp."

"No damage was done," Cruachan boomed. "Please, continue. This is quite fascinating--involving not only my rescuer, but magical systems to which I have no exposure."

"There isn't much left to say," Harry sighed. "Bob's skull may have fallen to dust--but there was no dust..." he looked quietly thoughtful.

"By now, Harry, there was likely no real skull, just a facsimile created by spells and stabilizing forces. Any true matter left probably dissolved very nearly the way you said, near the molecular level. But the forces, the manipulation--the skull didn't disappear. Along with the guidelines of the curse…I am the skull, my darling."

Harry stared.

"In part, at least. It's the reason I'm more than a visible nothingness that could see and hear--the forces that made the skull 'real', respond to gravity, to the pressure of touch, to texture, why I could feel through it in a manner. I'm considerably more than the skull, but those aspects of the curse--such as the ones that use you to create for me a body that I cannot tell from my real one--are likely what is holding me together. Some of my senses, of course, are coming from you, and I'm using your…hardware, if you will, to process them."

"If we leave--if we go where they can--can tell something is very, very different, and that you have at least some of your power back…"

"Yes, they will know. The local Councils, and then our own. I don't know what they'll do, but it's certain they'll do something. My 'punishment'--and, more to the point, my control--are considered their responsibility."

Harry looked back at Megare. "That's why you said there was good news and bad news."

She nodded, gazing into her wine glass.

"Bob has a real body--okay, it feels real to him--um, and me--just like the skull felt--was, for all practical purposes--real, even though it was a creation of artificial manipulation of--the relevant physical forces, whatever the hell they are. But you're still bound to me, like you were to the skull. And if we free you--"

"I will most likely die, in the natural course of things," Bob said quietly, expression at rest.

"That ain't an option, Bob."

"Not while you live, my darling, no. It isn't, for it would separate us."

"And if we leave here--"

"If you leave here and do not find someplace Councils and their wardens cannot find you, who lives and dies when will not be your choice no matter anything," Megare finished morosely, and had another swallow of wine. "I…do not like unkind people."

"I'm not real fond of 'em myself," Harry sighed, rubbing her satin-covered leg idly, eyes focused in the middle distance. He sighed again. "I'd better eat before I make Bob hungry."

She moved her leg so he could get up, and the rest of dinner was a quiet affair, Cruachan enjoying his cozy flame-filled stone chamber, the other three speaking idly of this and that, but mostly just pondering.


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the characters and I don't own this story.

**_LOUD AND CLEAR! I DO NOT, HAVE NOT AND WILL NOT EVER OWN THIS STORY!_**

**This story is the property of Tang Guangzhen who was kind enough to give me permission to post this here. Any flames about that will be used to fry your ass.**

**Thank You**

* * *

For whatever reason--perhaps the huddling-together-in-a-safe-place instinct--none of them felt like leaving the cozy hearthroom that adjoined Megare's bedroom. (Good night, there was a fireplace in the bedroom too. If they weren't real, wouldn't Cruachan have been able to discern that? Or would he have cared, trapped in a ruin for all that time--a spectacular ruin, granted.) Another part of the reason, of course, was that they were examining the piles of reference material that they'd narrowed down, and that Megare had brought in with a few gestures from the library.

Now Megare was lying on the couch; she was not by any means incoherent, but she was just a bit loose-limbed from the wine. Harry had eaten well, too, but in a near-silent and miserable state that seemed to Megare to warrant ouzo, so she had supplied it--and, with Bob's permission (since he might be affected by the stuff himself), Harry'd knocked back, with noises of disgust and impressive facial histrionics, about three shots. Of course, Bob also happened to know that strong drink put Harry dead to sleep after three shots, and ouzo would doubtless only have taken two.

Harry's neurochemical brain states had not, so far, been directly proportional to Bob's experience of them--it was more like, as Bob had put it once, an awareness; one that could become distracting, but only if Harry was in some sort of very unusual--and probably uncomfortable--way. So Bob himself simply felt a bit tired, as well as melancholy, and rather mellow and philosophical about it. He was enjoying the sensation of a relaxed, physical tiredness short of total exhaustion--he'd forgotten how peaceful that could feel--enhanced by a bit of Harry's ouzo coma.

He decided that as long as he didn't mind the prospect of ending up naked if something untoward occurred--and this wasn't a place where that would be a problem; Megare had made that obvious--he might as well be comfortable, and dress as he was used to doing in life, since he could feel now. At the moment, he was wearing the silk undergarments he'd been used to, beneath a loose, pale blue silk shirt with full-cut sleeves that gathered at his wrists, open-laced at the neck, tucked into the long waist of a pair of dark blue velvet trousers. Shoes had not seemed necessary, but he wore thick velvet sock/slippers that matched the trousers, just for the pleasure of feeling them on his feet.

Soft gold werelights burned around the room in corners, and from behind bookcases and elaborate cabinets. He was, at the moment, relaxed on a large slate-grey velvet floor cushion, leaning an elbow onto the couch where Megare reclined, while Harry peacefully slept in the reclining overstuffed chair Bob had been sitting in. Levered full out, it could just take Harry's six feet and three inches comfortably. Megare had promised to get him to a real bed before he could develop any stiff limbs from the immobility, but that wasn't exactly an urgent matter for a man, even a large one, who'd had three shots of ouzo.

Cruachan was resting, in a state as close as could be approached to ecstasy when one was in whatever passed for sleep for an ever-vigilant hearth imp, in the flames of his current bed. Megare occasionally made a gesture with a wave of a hand or a nod to readjust the stacking of the fire, or add wood--real, fragrant fruit wood--to the fire; it made no difference at all to Cruachan, who was not, after all, entirely present in the three human dimensions. "I would not disturb the poor creature for as long as he rests; he will be all over everywhere if he is needed. But that flue will be a fun cleaning," she'd muttered, shrugging.

"They are afraid of you," Megare now said softly. Her mild intoxication showed in that her English did not have the extreme clarity that conversation solely with Bob often lent it, but it was still clearer. "They know you are gone, and did not come back when expected. Guess they didn't find important enough to send someone to follow you; after all, they likely thought your reasons were smart. But now they contact people in the north of Europe; first place you landed in the Old World. Local Councils. Those will contact people closer to southern Europe."

"I know. It's not looking as though there's going to be an easy way for Harry and I to get out of here--but currently, we have nowhere to go, in any case. Harry's home is certainly watched, now, and the Morningway estate is always watched. Harry does have friends, but he would not feel right about endangering them--none of them live at your level of security. I have skills…I am adept at things which I Harry is not--that he has no instinct for, but would respect my knowledge in--that would at least keep us ahead of pursuit; but I don't want to live like that, and I very much to not want a man like Harry to live like that for my sake. I don't know whether I fear his refusal to do so, the possibility of his insistence that we stand and fight because right and justice are on our side--and so necessarily fall under whatever punishment is meted out; or if I fear what it would do to him--to remain moving, hiding--to follow me in a life of avoiding detection, out of love."

Megare made a sympathetic noise. "Poor Harry; I was so young, once, I know his anger, his frustration at the needlessness of the suspicion…and waste. And poor you, to love so much one who is so young, enough to live with that, all the time…" she sighed and shrugged, her shoulders sliding over her glossy hair on the silk batiked couch cushion she was lying on. "I have a large home. We will manage."

Bob shook his head. "We're endangering you, milady. Not immediately; as I said, if anyone Harry or I know is safe from anything that might be interested in us, you are. But eventually, there will be problems. You know that, as casual as you are for Harry's sake, and mine."

"Anyone try me, will find I am not so kind to the unkind," she muttered ominously. "And I am not what they may think. Even if they ever find me, or this place."

"Speaking of which, I've been meaning to ask. Are we still in Greece at all?"

"No. When we are inside? We are in the Himalayas. Under the mountains, near Nepal. I will not tell you closer, for your sake."

"That's quite close enough. And when Harry went outside this evening?"

"He was in, as it happens, Greece. So were you. I cannot protect you so well there, though I can get there quick as you by going out the door for that. And the door stays open. But you should stay inside."

Bob gazed at her, shaking his head in wonder. "If you are human, Megare, your power is breathtaking. If you are not human...well. I suppose breathtaking remains breathtaking."

"Too many mean people," Megare complained, letting her arm flop down over Bob's chest as she rolled over to her side, facing the edge of the couch. He stroked it lightly as she continued. "Mean people in the world. I fight them, like Harry. Like many have, many have."

"You're personally offended by it, aren't you," Bob said, smiling softly.

"Personally," Megare announced, lifting her head to do so, then letting it flop back to the couch cushion.

"You do remind me a great deal of Harry," Bob said, still smiling. "That's why you took such an interest in him, when he was so young, made sure to meet him, speak with him. You recognize…yourself?"

"No. Recognize…one of us. Harry tries to let it go, let no one see his pain, his need--but he is personally offended."

"By mean people."

"Yes. Bad people. He is not mean. He is like me."

"Someone whom power would not corrupt," Bob said softly, "as it did me."

"You have…" she waved her hand, the one resting on his waist, before settling it back there where he could stroke her arm some more. He suspected she was going to fall asleep there if he didn't stop. She finished "You are not that man."

"Harry said something…that I've paid--"

"You have not paid, you have changed. To punish, almost never change, it only frightens into approved behavior. You have changed. Harry trusts you with all of him, never thinks not to. His instinct. You have said, his instincts are big, scary powerful, strong, though he will not use all his power."

"Whereas you do."

"Oh…give him time. Very much time, to learn to trust what he is. I am old," she sighed. "I am changed, too. I no longer want what the young want. And I never wanted what MEAN people want." She made a snort of disgust into the couch cushion. "They are fools. They are a blight. I do not like them."

"I believe you, my dear. No need to become agitated." Bob smiled and picked up the hand that rested on his waist to kiss its knuckles.

"Cruachan is nice," she considered drunkenly, lifting her face to rest her chin on her forearm. "He helps, he protects, but if you are evil, and you threaten his people or his home, he rips your intestines out."

Bob winced, because he could easily see the imp being able to perform such an act, along with many others that left limbs and heads lying about in unlikely places. "Yes, I mentioned that to Harry when we first encountered him. He is a helpful spirit, but not a pacifistic one, nor a defenseless one."

"That is Harry, too," she said with a sideways nod. "He takes much pushing. But if he is pushed too far…"

"Yes," Bob said grimly, remembering feeling helpless, unable to stop what he knew was going to happen, and being terrified for Harry. "I have seen myself what Harry is capable of if his loved ones are involved."

She cut her eyes sideways and smirked. "'And it was only me,'" she said, imitating his accent perfectly.

He gave her a sour twist of lips. "All right, but you were the one who brought it up--his instincts, his trust in both of us--me for obvious reasons, and you simply--don't give me that look, at the time we parted first, at least, I knew little more than Harry did about you--because he liked you."

"Is his gift," she shrugged, staring upward. Overhead, several red ribbons that had probably been binding her hair at some point were doing a slitheringly intricate dance.

Bob watched them with her. She made them into two hearts with an arrow through them, and he chuckled. She smiled and the ribbons continued making random slithers, some abstract mandalas, some recognizable rough shapes, but mostly they just danced.

"Megare--and do not silence me; this is an important point--he trusted the Drake," Bob pointed out. "That's why we're here. As if you didn't know that."

"Oh, I know why you are here, less dead man. More to point, I know why you were in Greece. Is why I make to be there."

Bob was silent a moment. Then he said "I thought your…usual entrance to your abode was in Greece. It's where we saw you before, every time we've seen you--why we believed you lived there. And Harry believed…well, it was why you had to put those spells on him to keep Justin from finding out about your contact with him, altering his responses, and hiding, though not changing, his memories of your encounters."

"I hated that," she said, making a face. "To spell someone and not tell. Wrong, even if reason is right. But he was so young. I could not ask him to keep such a…"

"Gigantic," Bob supplied.

"…gigantic secret. Children, people not grown, their brains are all a mess of hormones. It is not fair. He might get into fight or need to make a point and be a child, not his doing."

"He might indeed have acted without thought to the consequences, as the very young do, it always seeming entirely just and proper at the time," Bob agreed, but went on "though it's true I'm not certain you ever told him enough to endanger yourself if Justin and the Chicago area Council discovered your occasional visits, whenever he passed through southern Europe. Greece, specifically, whether I was with him or not. Mostly not, later on," he admitted. "Not after he was grown."

"It is not me I worry for," she said, trying to readjust her position on the couch, and instead ending up slowly making a satin-induced slide right into Bob's silk-and-velvet-covered lap. It didn't seem to alter her focus of attention in the slightest; he simply caught her and arranged her comfortably with him on the floor cushion. "Is Harry. If Morningway--" she glanced rapidly around for a good place to spit, and Bob laid a hand on her smooth, muscled, dark-olive shoulder.

"Please don't, Megare. I understand that you always found Justin Morningway to be a truly disgusting personage."

"Disgusting personage," she muttered, rolling her eyes at the inadequacy of the term. She almost looked like she was going to spit anyway, but managed to only say "He was filth. Many would say, he was insane. Maybe, maybe. But not me. He was not insane. He was not human. He was not a decent other creature, either. He was evil."

"So was I, by some standards, at one time. Harry even burned the first grimoire I wrote while I was alive, after I had begun to serve him instead of Justin."

"You were human," she said, as though that explained everything. "You were a human still too young, too young to bear such pain."

"I wouldn't say I was either exactly evil--or, precisely, young--but after Winefride was murdered…I suppose nothing but the power, the knowledge, seemed to matter. That, and using it to get her back, at any cost. Necessitas non habet legum." Bob snorted. "It did not end with her return. Her murder made me see the world…differently, even after I had her back. I was not evil, as I said, but I was not anyone's idea of a neighborly goodman, either, even leaving my rank out of it. But after Windefride's return…"

"You were too young to have no bend in the brain. You were insane."

"Thank you, milady Megare," Bob said, and kissed the top of her head. Her prominent cheekbone rested against his shoulder. All right, drop the "young" issue; obviously Megare meant compared to how old he'd become a couple of centuries later. He had to admit they had been settling. "That means a great deal coming from you."

"You were not old enough to stand that without going wrong. And you went wrong. And you were punished too hard, but at least it made you right again, instead of making you always insane. It might have. It was wrong to do to you. Wrong reasons, wrong punishment--Harry is right about that."

"But it did, according to you, give me back my perspective. How can that have been wrong?" He asked as though merely curious, not with any emotion in the question.

"They did not know it would make you right. They did it in fear, not to help you, teach you. It was to take away your power only--and you had more than anyone, unless they banded up…it was done for the wrong reason. There is no denying that, or their responsibility. But it did give you back…you." She moved a little to rest her forehead in his neck. "And gave you Harry. How often you think ones like him are born?"

"Very, very rarely, which is why Justin killed his father, and possibly his mother, to get his hands on the boy. You know, it seems odd that none of those most power-hungry--the magically inclined all around the world, but particularly human wizards, who seem to have the weakest defense against the effects of power--are not on a constant search for you…?" he let his voice trail into a question.

"Oh, I am too old to use, to those who believe I might be alive. Others believe I am dead, others cannot say…and none of them," she pulled herself a little more upright in his lap, going eyeball-to-eyeball with him, her high-bridged nose poinking Bob's, and poking him in the chest with a finger for further emphasis, "know who I am. Or who I was. Or who I will be." She sat back a bit, checking the fire briefly.

Bob held her slight, rounded, muscled form, considering, and smoothed her thick, fine hair back from her face. "Whatever you may have been, or are, or will be…are you always someone who is personally offended by mean people?"

She poked his chest again. "Definitely." Then she slid down, resting her head on his shoulder. "You need information on your curse--from those who created it," she said. "Those will now be your local Council--they would have been informed of the necessary things when your skull came to the Americas."

"I'm afraid they may not be very forthcoming," Bob sighed almost soundlessly.

"Will be if you are most powerful sorcerer in your part of the world."

He raised a bemused eyebrow. "I am powerful, as is Harry," Bob said, "and I do seem to have at least some of my sorcerous abilities back, but we haven't checked to see if there would be a drain on Harry's power if I were to try for the most powerful levels of my--"

"There is a way," she repeated.

Bob sighed, and his head lowered as he thought. Then he said "No, Megare. I can't do that."

"It would let you travel safely, as safely as you could--there would be no danger to you or to him from what we do not know, and may not have time to understand, about the linkage between you. And if you work at it, it could let you make his power and your power one power. You might be the most powerful human sorcerer in your part of the world. They would have to listen to you, have to tell you, have to let you--"

"Harry is already upset that I'm bound to him," Bob said impatiently, leaning her back in his arm so he could look in her face, her dark hair cascading fluidly across his legs, as his knees were upraised as part of holding her. "He doesn't like himself for it, and his first concern was my lack of privacy, and the…implications of a soul bound to him, but--"

"This is different. Trust me. It cannot hurt to ask him."

"If I propose such an idea, he will say yes! You know what he's already said yes to, and he's even offered, Megare! Without a thought! He's probably forgotten by now--I certainly never shall--but he offered to let me possess him as a lark, the first night I went past his barriers while he slept. Now, he'd accept because it would enable us to travel safely, away from whatever it is about you, or Cruachan, or whatever about your unique, intricate and powerful mode of living that may be what has made our…our open joining in the dreams render the skull itself, if not its purpose, moot--while making sure that the removal of whatever that is will not suddenly separate us, kill me, do all gods know what to--to Harry--my beloved--" Bob stopped to control himself. "Yes, it may be as you said--this was inevitable--or it may be something here that we cannot leave without some sort of consequences. And Harry has a temper. He will want to go straight back to Chicago and confront Mai and our Council. Not that he'd make it that far. As you've said--again and again--he is young. He will follow his impulses."

"He will follow his instincts. His instincts are not wrong. When he invited the Drake in, he was not facing it, did not see it, was occupied with concentration on a yogic exercise--"

"Yes, he was concentrating on Indian pushups and had his fine rump to the door, he told me. And he told you, I suppose. But his concern is a real one, and you can't dismiss it so easily; I'm surprised you'd even try. He made a major mistake involving his instincts, which I agree are profound, greater than any wizard's I've known. But they did fail him, badly, which is why he's so determined to shore them up with his wards--"

"Cruachan may still help you--"

"Cruachan may not know anything that will help if we end up with the entire North American Council on us! And what about after? Harry will never let me go if he thinks there's the slightest possibility of my death, and I'd never leave him, with no knowledge at all of what the breaking of that linkage, in which so much of him is invested, might do to him. It won't work, Megare. We have to think of something else."

"I think of something else." She struggled a bit to sit up more, and he assisted her; the way they were arranged on the cushion, their height matched, and she met his gaze. "I can solve this."

"Megare!"

"If you do not wish to risk Harry, there is no choice. You need information about the situation you are in. You need to know if leaving Harry or letting him leave you would kill either of you, hurt either of you. I can go to your, to North America, Chicago. I--"

"I will not permit that under any circumstances, Megare. You have said that one of the reasons you're still alive is that some people think you may be alive, while the rest are certain you're dead. If you reveal yourself as alive and well, what will happen to you?"

She raised an eyebrow, smirking. "You should ask, what will not happen to me? I will be very busy woman."

"Megare…this is not my business, and I ask your forgiveness for my presumptuousness. But…are you in fact a human wizard?"

"At the moment, yes, I am a human wizard. Because I am so warmly fond of you, I will tell you that I was not always human, and will not always be."

"Does that mean," Bob repeated, taking her shoulders in urgency, "that you would be only a human wizard--an exceedingly powerful one, I have seen it myself, but no calling on anything you may have been or may become--against the North American Council?"

"You have seen what I can do. Well. You have seen a little bit, anyway, of what I can--"

"But I do not know the extent of Mai's powers, not fully; I do not know for a fact that she is even human; and you would be facing the entire Council."

"Your faith is touching," she muttered, and yawned.

"Megare, this is serious! You cannot be genuinely considering--" he met her gaze. "Very well, milady. You do have me at a disadvantage. I have no idea whether you are serious or not. From my knowledge of you…you could well be."

"Simply to ask him. Make sure he understands danger. Make sure he knows what it is you would be doing together."

"Megare, my dear," Bob sighed, settling her against his chest--she got comfortable and yawned again--"we don't know what we would be doing together. Just as no one would let anyone who might tell it about--and that could have some idea of what was happening--get close to them, or tell them outright what was happening, concerning something like what Harry and I do, the only cases of possession, too, on record are involuntary. They are about people who came on their own, or whose families brought them to a holy person, or a wizard, or a brain-digging quack, or whoever was available, to have the invading personality cast out, hopefully destroying it in the process. Those who welcomed the situation would know that any such 'healer' person who had real power would know that there was more than one being in the body in question, and keep away from such genuine powers--and tell no one. Even if they ended up with a reputation as an eccentric, since the death of their wife, or lover; or whoever it destroyed their heart so completely to lose, that when given the chance, they shared their own body to keep that person in their life. So we know nothing about what sort of effects--"

"Yes; you have said it is possible. A voluntary possession."

"I have hypotheses about it! Discussion with an imp and…and doing that to Harry--Megare, you can't possibly expect me--"

"Harry is young, but grown now," she murmured gently. "He deserves to know what there is to do, whether he feels he can do it. He is a wizard, powerful, and intuitive like most of us would only dream about."

"And he trusts me completely," Bob whispered. "The one time in his life he thought I'd let him down, in the worst possible way, he wouldn't truly believe it until I actually drained his power--and then it turned out, even after it was all over and too late--I hadn't turned on him at all, but saved him--and died to do it. After that, he'll never believe I could betray him or harm him, not even if things came past that point again--not that they ever will. I…Harry…I raised him, Megare, from the time he was eleven."

"And now you have different sort of trust, different feelings for him, yes?"

"I have more feelings layered on those I had, is a better way to put it--but yes, I do. As I've said to him, I am old enough that--when you see as many people be born, and live their lives through, and die, as I have--you gain a certain perspective about such things. Harry has none of that experience. I think Harry would do anything for me, sometimes."

"You died for him. You had life after so long, and threw it away to save him from his uncle returning, to try to take his life force--the most suitable--over and over. If you did not cooperate, the double would simply have destroyed you and found another way. It was for Harry you gave up your life to kill Justin."

"If your point is that I love Harry, I never denied that."

"Point is you are no more levelheaded about him than he is about you, and you cannot make decision for him. We know, if it can be done, then the two of you could find who and what you need; it must exist, those who would be guarding you would have been given the knowledge. We know there is no other way except to send me. You imagine what does he do, does he hear that?"

"That's part of my point. He would never endanger you so, and he would never send another to fight his battle. He relies on his allies, and--" Bob smiled. "As we have said, he is one of very few wizards, like you, and occasionally me now, who work and play quite well with others. But he does not let anyone do his serious work for him. He would feel there was no choice but to--"

"If that is the way he sees it--and we do not know that, we have not asked him--" she smacked him lightly in the head once with each word; he muttered "ow", and smirked a little, "then there is no choice." He let her fall back a little in his arm again to meet her eyes, but she only favored him with a lopsided smile. "Unless you like my hospitality so well, you will tell him you must both stay until no one seeks you? How long? How long for that? How long do wizards live? How long do they hold grudges? How long do they protect their own power? I should tell you how long it took before most believed I was dead--and that is only most. Some are still not sure, you know. Very suspicious, paranoid people, sorcerers."

Bob pulled her close; she embraced him, and they were both silent in the fire's glow and soft werelight for a long time.

"Besides, he is not stupid," Megare finally said, leaning back enough to see him. She tenderly stroked his hair back down where she'd batted it. "Do you think he will not read and examine the same as we have, and realize on his own?"

"He will," Bob whispered, staring down at her satin-clad lap. "I know him; I taught him how to find such connections, and he has surpassed my expectations in every way. I have trouble following him, sometimes…he only needs more time, like we've had."

"You tell him tomorrow?"

"I will heal his hangover first," Bob said thoughtfully, "he always has one, and it's always quite ugly. But I've never been able to get rid of it for him before, short of telling him the location of the Alka-Seltzer."

"Three ouzo?" Megare said, raising an eyebrow. "That is all for Harry to have mal de tete?"

"And mal de everything else. Harry really shouldn't drink at all," Bob admitted. "Beyond beer and wine, really. Though there are times for indulgence, I admit. It's just that…like many of us, he's very sensitive to it."

"I count on that," Megare nodded.

"You…got him drunk on purpose so you could tell me to--I'm going to tell him that," he threatened.

She shrugged. "He will be big-eyed enough to find he is in the Himalayas. He will forgive me."

"He did say you made a good aunt, though I never thought you had enough contact with him for that," Bob concurred. "Perhaps…he'll forgive you as one always forgives one's mother when she tries to shield one."

"I will hurt you," she said, pointing right in his face. "I do not look old enough for his mother."

"No, you won't hurt me," he said, reaching up to take her hand and lower it, smiling. "You like me too well."

"And you know me too well," she muttered in disgust. "I think I take you all to bed, and go myself. We all will be ogres in the morning. Except the imp."

"Oh, the imp," Bob groaned. "Keep him quiet until I've dealt with Harry's headache, could you?"


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the characters and I don't own this story.

**_LOUD AND CLEAR! I DO NOT, HAVE NOT AND WILL NOT EVER OWN THIS STORY!_**

**This story is the property of Tang Guangzhen who was kind enough to give me permission to post this here. Any flames about that will be used to fry your ass.**

**Thank You**

* * *

Harry woke feeling wonderful, with a warm, small, sweetly female body pressed to his, what had to be a satin nightgown soft and smooth against his mostly-exposed skin, one of her firm-muscled legs entwined with his. He murmured a happy, half-awake "mmmmm," without opening his eyes, or thinking, or any of that party-pooping stuff, and reached up to rub against her and wrap his free arm around her. She snuggled against him, but something…hard and flat was removed from his chest, and she turned away. She didn't move away, but she rolled to her back, hair like a bale of silk thread slithering softly all over him and the area.

"Good morning, my darling," Bob said softly, the affection in his voice gently amused.

Okay, now it was definitely time to open the eyes.

Megare was using the outflung arm Harry had his head on the shoulder of, said arm being wrapped with Bob's, as a headrest; she rested her neck, sort of, on the fleshy parts of their arms where it would be most comfortable for everybody, while frowning at a softly glowing, glassy-dark rectangle she was holding where she could see it, in both hands; it seemed to be performing the function of a viewing screen, but was only about the size of a spiral notebook, and Harry couldn't see it flat on. She wasn't using her hands or a stylus or anything visible to make notations on it, but flickering multicolored light and her intense expression as she stared at it made the fact that she was using some information-providing device, likely of her own invention, obvious. Bob was in dark blue silk pajamas, and between him and Megare in the red satin--Harry would have been hard pressed to say who it was tougher not to jump on, if it hasn't been for the fact that the idea of jumping on Megare in that particular way made his stomach do something disquieting.

Damn, she and Bob flirted all the time, why didn't he get to? 'Cause he was a big wimp about flirting with a woman he had remnants of the auntie sort of feelings for, he supposed. Didn't bother him with Bob. Of course, he'd lusted after Bob as soon as lust had anything to do with his life at all, and longed for his approval and closer contact even before then--but he'd lusted after Megare a bit, too, when he was young. Huh. Maybe it was her, dicking with his head again, making him think he didn't want her. If so, he had no doubt that she at least thought she was doing him a favor. Her honor would not allow their messing about purely for reasons of her own convenience, and she would know it would mean more than that to him.

He sighed and let his head fall again, glad he'd realized who she was before he'd grabbed and squeezed her hips prepatory to kissing her deeply and grinding against her, thus committing himself to learning the intricacies of seppuku out of sheer humiliation. The fact that she wouldn't have minded--would have been affectionately flattered and understanding--didn't help for shit. Sometimes it actually left you with a more substantial sense of self to be slapped in the face, but he could forget about that with Megare. If anybody slapped Harry in the face, Megare would mageburn him/her to the ground, hesitating only long enough to be sure she didn't get in the way of Bob's doing it.

"Uh, hi, guys." He glanced snuffily and blearily around; they were in Megare's large bedroom, decorated in a similar cross between deco and Victorian as the guestroom they'd been using. She'd either swept them with a wave of her hand into her bedroom and then slept elsewhere, for some reason; or, more likely, she'd been intending to sleep there with them, knowing Harry was not up for nookie that evening; but instead, she'd been up all night. The way the three of them were arranged looked a lot like Bob and Harry had been in a pile on their own for at least a while, and Megare had decided it was time to get started on the morning's work--then come in and climbed on top, sliding down into the middle, fetching her sorcerous workpad with her.

"Good morning, sweet Harry," she said, not looking at him. "Hrothbert is to get food, because we should know whether he can eat, and what happens if he does. Hopefully, same sorts of thing that when we do--cellular respiration, adenosine triphosphate, cleaning and regeneration, tissue building, pooping."

"She's right," Bob said dourly, "I may need to be able to take in nutritional supplies and general energy--of what sort, we won't know until I try. Perhaps I'll photosynthesize. I'm not anxious to begin this experiment. It has been six hundred years."

"Oo. Yeah. My sympathies. I recommend a morning coffee and bran muffin. Well, you've been eating in the dreams and liking it--though we didn't dream last night, did we?" Harry suddenly felt frozen. No dreaming? Could they do it now?

"I didn't try," Bob shrugged. "Alcohol seriously disturbs the brainwave patterns of the sleep cycle. It wouldn't have been much use."

"Oh."

"Megare, my dear, let me get to Harry a moment," Bob said, and leaned over her--she shrunk down with her workpad over her face to get out of the way--and kissed Harry's temple and the corner of his eye softly. "I'll be back with a…light breakfast."

"Better make it light," Harry suggested as Bob rose from bed and headed for the door, over the red-and-blue Persian rugs, rubbing his eyes with one hand. "We don't want you exploding or me getting…hey. I don't feel like shit." He hadn't felt like shit before, but he only now realized he ought to.

"Not-so-dead lovely man healed us both, but you must drink water. And pee. Very much pee. Toxins, yes? Very bad."

"Yeah, I get it," Harry sighed, noticing--because she was, without looking up from what she was doing, holding an arm right across his face to point to a crystal pitcher of water on a thick, white, braided cloth mat on the shining mahogany lamptable on his side of the bed, and a cut crystal goblet that matched the pitcher. "You weren't as hung over?"

She lowered her arm. "No. I already did that part," she explained, still occupied with whatever she was holding. "Much pee. Finished half Pyrrdin's notes on shapechanging in 'Glyngowsn'. Bum looks like I was driving bus with it."

"Your butt's had a pretty hard time of it since I showed up, hasn't it?" Harry sat up and discovered that there were other books and monographs and chapbooks and collections of notes tied together with string and other such materials scattered around the foot of the bed. That hadn't kept him from sleeping through her arrival, the stuff's arrival, and Bob's waking up and welcoming both her and the stuff's arrival, because even though the bed was big and deep enough to house a large, active family of raccoons, she'd couldn't have gotten where she'd gotten without some help from someone who was there already.

But the fact that she had so much going on before he'd even got to take a leak or get a coffee seemed to answer the question of whether she'd been up all night. She didn't look worn out; she was probably using a stimulant balancing formula or some other sort of spell-compensation. "What's so urgent?"

"Right now, you drink water, piss 'til your head caves in. Then we eat, then we talk."

Harry blinked. He did feel kinda dehydrated. "O-kay," Harry o-kayed, and turned toward the pitcher and goblet next to the bed. "Where's the imp?"

"He was helpful last night, mostly, give me ideas, listen to mine, shut up when I ask. Now he looks for things to maintain. He is happy to do what he does again, after so long."

"I bet that's one reason he and Bob get along so well," Harry said, and began downing the startlingly cold, fresh, different-tasting water. He smacked his lips and said "Maintain? With a carpentry and plumber's kit?"

"No, with his…self. He makes things…want to be stable. Makes the house happy. It is different. Hrothbert has taught you about house spirits, Harry, how some are industrious with the buildings they live in, more than others. It depends who makes them."

"This one wasn't in the syllabus. I recall no overactive-thyroid wolverine cats with piranha teeth. Feel free to curl up on me again."

"You drink, I curl." She did, enwrapping him in a leg and an arm, propping the magical computerized thingawhatsis on his chest. Her satin gown was a bit large and had crawled around as she moved on the bed, and Bob and Harry, such that it was in danger of leaving her entirely. It was more decorating her than acting as a garment.

Harry sighed. "You're very, very pretty, and I mean that in a highly filial way."

She smiled kindly at him and dropped her face to nuzzle him in the shoulder with the crown of her head. "Drink, Harry, is good for you."

Harry ran his free hand up and down soft skin, silken lengths of hair, fine-grained satin, and--sigh--drank his water. He wondered why the taste brought to mind gaspingly thin air, and glaciers that never really changed, much, overall, the huge kind, like at the poles, like…

"Greetings!" boomed the room. Cruachan caromed out of the dark fireplace, a vertigo-inducing swimming of perspective with teeth, claws, and eyes. His not-fur seemed extra bushy, or maybe his excitement made him especially non-spatially-specific at the moment.

"Good morning," Harry said. "I understand you spent a productive night."

"I rested, aided Wizard Megare, and performed my functions, yes. And you?"

"I lay in a drunken stupor." Megare made a small snorting noise into Harry's soft, curly chest hair. Neither the snort nor the hair were excessive, but it was enough to tickle.

Cruachan said, quite as though it were the expected thing, "Yes, I had noticed that earlier in the evening. Are you now recovered?"

"Bob fixed me up, for which I am forever in his debt, again."

"He fix me up too," Megare said, sitting up; she didn't entirely let go of Harry, leaving their legs wrapped and sitting against him while she rummaged in the stuff scattered around the foot of the bed. He took the opportunity to sneak a peak at her notebook computer or whatever it was.

It sure wasn't a notebook computer. It didn't look like any kind of screen he was familiar with; it looked more like looking into an analysis pattern, or something like that, but again, not like anything he was familiar with. Shapes, colors, and patterns moved in it, in darkness that appeared to be entirely three-dimensional, like looking through a window, not like looking at a movie screen; it had definite depth, and he had the feeling that the type of depth and level of it were an integral part of the information being either recorded, observed, manipulated, or all three. Colors moved in patterns that were sometimes radially or laterally or otherwise symmetrical, or twisted in shapes that followed recognizable paths, but others seemed to follow nothing that could be a method of communication of any kind, and they existed in all intensities of color, in barely any color, specific shapes, no shapes, changing shapes, flowing and changing and vanishing and dancing in roundelays of possible meaning--

He was knocked backward onto the pillows. "Harry! Do not look into my notepad. It could…do things to you."

"It already has," he breathed, and twisted, holding his stomach, his eyes squirming shut.

She grabbed him in her arms. "Easy…breathe…I fix…I fix it…there…I take it away, it is gone…better now?"

"Yes," he breathed, "I think so. It felt like…like my brain was…"

"Your brain has had quite enough excitement lately," Bob said; Harry hadn't even noticed he'd come back in, one hand on a floating cart that Megare didn't seem to be controlling; if Bob wasn't, it must be another invention of hers. "What happened?"

"Wizard Dresden attempted to comprehend Wizard Megare's 'notepad'," Cruachan supplied. "I assume it is a personal device, keyed only to her."

"Yes, Cruachan, very good, is personal keyed to me, no one else must look. Make you sick. I am surprised, Harry. Anyone else, probably…" she looked grim. "I know about strokes, and seizures, and aneurysms."

"You know what they are," Bob said, coming slowly around the bed with the cart in tow, "or you know of such reactions to trying to decipher your…'notepad'?"

"Second one."

"People have died of looking at that that thing? Their brains just…blow up?" That was sure what it had felt like was trying to happen.

"Cascading synaptic failure," she said, shrugging reaching for a plate that held a crepe rolled with fruit and what looked like cream cheese. "They are…gone, before their brains do what I said, then their brains do what I said."

"Megare, shit! You need to put a warning label or something on that thing!"

"No one ever sees it now," she shrugged, "except you. Most people who have seen it look away right now--" she held an arm up and snapped her fingers, "turn green, run for the toilet. But you kept looking, kept trying to understand. Maybe you could," she said speculatively, took a bite of crepe, and finished her thought, managing to talk and chew neatly, "if your brain structure strongly reinforced enough, but human is not. Nobody on earth, with earth brain. Whales, cats, frogs, humans. But you are…different."  
"I ain't from earth?"

"No. You are. You are different, as I say. You were from elsewhere you would not be different, you would be from elsewhere. Eat your food. Bob, tu aussi make to stop handing napkins and eat food, tout d'suite. Un petit, lentement. Facile, comme la crêpe. Et ayez le thé, thé délicieux. Light tea with jasmine, tres bien."

"Milady, you're speaking about half French. That's fine, Harry and I have no trouble with the it, but you didn't seem to be doing it on purpose."

"Бог в рае," she sighed, resting her face in her palm. " Дайте мне прочность." Then she held up one of her books in explanation--the handwritten title was clearly in French--and Harry and Bob both nodded in understanding. The reference material she'd been ploughing through and coordinating all night was doubtless in any number of languages in any stage of etymological development. That last bit had been "God in heaven" in Russian, Harry'd caught--swearing was easy to pick up in other languages; it was grammatically simple, emphatic, and got repeated a lot. The second bit had been something like "Give me strength."

As he patted her shoulder in understanding, he sniffed the air again; the flowery tea smell was indeed delightful. He wondered where the jasmine came from in this aerielike--what was he thinking? This was the Mediterranean, the mountains were only called that because they slanted so much--you could grow, or in Megare's case likely buy, almost any flower tea you wanted. And there'd be tons of imports to placate the tourists who were used to their pekoe-cut black, or whatever.

Bob sat down with them, moving some of Megare's stuff and procuring, from a rack at the side of the cart, one of the Japanese-looking lacquered lap trays with unfoldable legs and little tiny fences around the edges (to keep the food from making a break for it), and did so. "Harry, please don't, um, overindulge. I have a notion I may be feeling both our breakfasts, though it's only a notion; there are other bodily processes of yours I've not felt with any degree of great intimacy at all, thank Uhura Mazda; or it may be, as has been the case so far, not in direct proportion."

"Gotcha," Harry said; he wasn't all that hungry right now anyway, after all the water, which he was still washing down; in fact, he was starting to think fondly of toilets himself.

"Cruachan, yours is on the lower shelf of the cart," Bob said, placing items on his tray, and the imp, in the form of a weird undulation of the rug--like the floor seen through a heat haze--approached the cart to enjoy the essence of heavier food, cornbread and butter and whole milk and steak.

"Why does he get the high-power stuff?" Harry wondered, although he knew the answer. It was the sort of food he would have been used to at home, or something approximating it; he would get the most of the essence of organics and intent out of it that he could. He'd been on a mountain full of ruins in Greece for a long time.

"Harry, I love you, but spare us your infantile whining and eat your crepes like a good grown-up," Bob said, trepidatiously attacking one end of his own current fruit-and-cream cheese goodie with a fork, which his ordinarily elegant and graceful fingers didn't seem totally at ease with--he tried several different grips just as Harry watched, before watching the way Megare used her forefinger to push down on the uppermost tine to cleanly cut the mooshy crepe, and copying her. Harry wondered how long they'd been using tableware when Bob had been alive. Either one's belt knife or one's fingers had been the implements of choice when Bob died; some people carried little flatware sets, but it was far from universal. Finger bowls and napkins were used by anyone who could afford anything resembling them. Messy dishes were eaten with bread, mostly. Bob had never been very specific about the exact date of his death, though one could extrapolate a bit from the existence of Bainbridge as (for the time) a thriving commercial center, large and well-connected enough to attract magic-practicing nobility.

Harry grinned and ate his crepes. They were fresh, sweet and in all ways perfect. It would never have occurred to him that Bob could cook, especially since he could hardly seem to handle a fork and cooking implements had been around before eating implements had, and then he remembered that a lot of things around Megare's place seemed to handle themselves. "Did you make these, Bob?"

"Heavens, Harry, I wouldn't inflict my cooking on Megare any more than I'd try to foist yours on her. No, Megare's kitchen is very cooperative. It seems to have a supply of…preserved foodstuffs that can be simply requested and produced on command."

"I have replicator," Megare said, and grinned, though she didn't look up from what she was doing, which was glancing between some big-assed monograph Harry hadn't checked the identity of, and her metal-backed, rectangular window of messy brain death. If she didn't want to be noticed as different even to them, past a certain point--and it was his feeling that she didn't--Harry wondered why she was using it in front of them, then realized that it might really only be a matter of the thing being keyed to Megare. It might work for anyone if properly set--or another might, if the settings were permanent. Wizards invented and used unique items all the time, after all.

He only said "Cool. Can I play with it?"

"You may retrieve food from it. But I come in and find food stacked all over, you will eat every bit, with me standing over you with sharp serving fork. You will not give my lovely lord of Bainbridge the shits, you rude young man. Anyway, it is not replicator really; it does not create food, or take it back; it reconstitutes."

"I figured something like that," Harry said, whapping her knee with his napkin. "I just thought it might be cool to see if I could make it work for a couple of things. Like chocolate chip cookies."

"I have those," she smiled, still not looking up.

"I've heard a great deal about those; we never got around to them in your dreams," Bob said, having just swallowed a bite of crepe that he'd savored almost into liquid before swallowing. "Though the chocolate layer cake was lovely." He had one hand on his flat abdomen, not in distress, but rather as though he was trying to see if he could feel the food going down, or maybe because he could feel his gut waking up and stretching for the first time since, well, since.

Or maybe he was about to fall into two pieces. Damn, damn--don't go there. Eat the crepes. They're good. "Macadamia chocolate chunk, if Megare has them, plain if not. The first one can be for you," he smiled at Bob. "I'll see if it makes 'em hot and gooey. That's good, best kind. You'll faint."

"You are too kind to me, my darling." Bob's return smile showed he wasn't completely fooled as to Harry's state of nervousness, but appreciated Harry's effort all the same.


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the characters and I don't own this story.

**_LOUD AND CLEAR! I DO NOT, HAVE NOT AND WILL NOT EVER OWN THIS STORY!_**

**This story is the property of Tang Guangzhen who was kind enough to give me permission to post this here. Any flames about that will be used to fry your ass.**

**Thank You**

* * *

"Hi," Harry whispered, coming up behind Bob where he stood at one of the great windows; a brief gust ruffled his waving silver-blond hair; it gleamed, looking made of moonlight. 

"My darling," Bob sighed, leaning back. He turned his head, closing his eyes, his head falling to Harry's shoulder to let Harry kiss his temple.

"You know, it doesn't look like the Himalayas out there either," Harry joked quietly, smiling, holding Bob with one arm around his chest and one around his waist. He squeezed a blue-clad shoulder with the hand that rested there and said "I've had it with the wondering--she's not human, is she? You can tell me."

"At the moment, Harry, she is indeed human. If she weren't, she might not have to be so careful. It's true that some of her power comes from having been…other than human, and some of it comes from being so old, having so much knowledge. Someday, she will be other than human again. But she…is timeless, in a way that makes it difficult to discuss such things, and impossible to do it accurately."

"If she has so much knowledge, why does she need that library?"

"Because she is human now. Are you listening?"

"Um…you're right, I could be listening better. I'm still thinking about the look on your face when you ate warm chocolate chunk cookies and ice cream." He squeezed Bob as they both chuckled. "That was incredible."

"Within the last handful of centuries, you're the only other thing that's been anything like so good," Bob sighed.

"Then at least we know you're human," Harry smiled; Bob could feel it against his temple. "If you'd hated it you'd have been…I dunno, the world's biggest party poop, or maybe just diabetic. Or something. So, what's for tonight? You've been promising to just take me on a little float outside here, some night when the water's calm, and show me what my own stars look like. Been curious about that."

"The water's calm when you are, my darling, just like the wind; in this particular spot, things are unusually clear for a dream, but they're…more like dreams usually are, things happening for the same sorts of reasons…"

"Like me showing up looking twelve when I'm insecure and need to be small enough to fit in your lap. Y'know, I gotta feel insecure more often." Harry smiled. "You got a great lap."

"It terrified me near to blithering," Bob murmured, looking away. "I was afraid I would hurt you somehow, or that you were worse off than you seemed, and anything I did might…"

"Hey," Harry whispered, touching Bob's chin with two fingertips as he leaned in to barely rest his lips against Bob's ear, and breathe: "You. Will. Never. Hurt. Me. Never. You never will, and so say I. Fiat inquam. Fiat voluntas mei," he emphasized, smiling and continuing "Confido, et conquiesco, fidelis amicus. Tu, dum spiro, fido."

"Feeling confident to the point of authoritativeness, aren't we?" But he was covering his reaction to Harry's deep voice becoming resonant with Latin. Harry lost the American midwestern flatness to his vowels completely in some languages.

"So, maybe a quiet little boat trip tonight?"

"I don't think so, my darling, much as the prospect appeals. I'm afraid we need to talk."

Harry didn't react immediately, simply seeming thoughtful. "Hmm, I thought you might say that. You know, we've been hammering things out all day, with and without Megare and the multidimensional pet house spirit."

"Yes, and a good deal was discussed, and perhaps rather less was settled, but I think we did accomplish a fair bit." He conducted Harry toward the bed again.

"Just not enough?"

They thrashed through the gossamer hangings and lay down; Harry tucked a leg comfortably between Bob's and began unhurriedly unbuttoning the older man's pajama shirt.

In answer to his earlier question, Bob shook his head. "No, my darling Harry. The most important thing was not even mentioned, because I made Megare agree to let me bring it up to you, and discuss it with you. It wasn't a difficult promise to exact; it's a very personal topic, and a frighteningly personal thing. One thing Megare never is is invasive. Though her lack of facility with words does betray her on occasion." He smiled.

Harry made motions of turning Bob in his arms; he slid his hands into Bob's open shirt. Bob smiled and cooperated, and they kissed for a moment. "What do we need to talk about?" Harry whispered. "And can it wait a few minutes?"

Bob sighed sadly. "I'm afraid it can't, my love. Besides, if you wanted me to feel amorous tonight, you shouldn't have stuffed me full of food."

Harry cackled in his ear. "You old fart."

"That's only one aspect of what I'm worried about."

Harry laughed. "Okay, I'll back off of your overstuffed belly. I admit, I'm not up for messing around either when it's like I can feel a dead body in my gut."

"So much for any remaining mood." Bob chuckled.

"Hey, I'm a guy, you know?"

"I know. I've both seen that, and had what I've seen demonstrated to my complete satisfaction; and you can take that any way you like. But now, we really are going to talk about what needs talking about. I've let you drag me off the topic because…well, I have to ask you, or tell you--I have to inform you of something, and I want you to disagree. I want you to tell me to forget it. I want to tell you that I have a fair level of certainty that I can do this safely, and still I want you to say no."

Harry pondered, chewing a full lip. "You seem to get yourself into that kinda position a lot, there, Bob."

"I know, and I wonder what the bloody hell I could be doing wrong. I love you so much, Harry. Why is it I'm so often the one putting you in mmmph?" He had to finish the sentence with an interrogative-toned verbal variable as Harry kissed him thoroughly, deep and hard and moaning and I-love-you-too.

"Dead bodies can be dumped off bridges and such," Bob said shakily, and cleared his throat.

"Ah, God, Bob, I'd love to. When we dream, I can feel…" he held his hand flat to Bob's now-exposed chest, "…what you feel, inside."

The hand Bob laid over Harry's shook a tiny bit. "And I you."

He and Harry stayed still like that, gazing through the dimmed moonlight up and down over each other's persons, afraid to meet each other's eyes when to do so would be to see everything they could feel from each other when they made love. Harry leaned down and deposited kisses all over the smooth, pale, fine-grained skin of Bob's muscle-rounded chest .

"Harry--Gods in hell--please, either stop or don't stop."

"I'm sorry. You're irresistible." He hastily pulled Bob's shirt closed and did up a couple of the buttons.

Bob sighed. "So is your mouth; don't tease me with it like that. I thought nothing could match how beautiful it was. But it feels even better than it looks and the things you can do with it were probably illegal or against God or some such rot in my day. Done, of course, but illegal."

"Sounds like now."

"Certain types of stupidity never seem to change, no matter how the rest of us fight it. Harry…we don't know what leaving this place would do to either of us, correct? Possibly, nothing; we may be perfectly stable this way. Or it could be the influence of either Megare or Cruachan that allows this…avenue of joining, or, rather, several avenues working together. Finally…"

"The skull. I'm keeping you together; nothing else could be. If your curse were broken, you'd just die. If a component of the curse were lost, you might be…destroyed. Either way, if your link with me were broken, the curse that's holding you together would collapse."

"We don't know whether it would be broken if--"

"We also don't know if anyone might do it on purpose, and if they did, we don't know how to defend against it!" Harry blew out a sigh and calmed himself, moving down to rest his head on Bob's shoulder. "We understand what's happening as well as we can without more information. And we know who has that information--who would have been given that information when your skull ended up in the states."

"If we contacted her, I doubt she'd answer via a postcard with a neat list of vital points," Bob said.

"I doubt that too. Even if we didn't involve her--and she'd be involved--we still have to get to where the information is--back home. We might be able to find it in England, but it's been centuries; your luck would be even worse there than ours would be in Chicago without the help of someone who's--"

"About that."

Harry looked sharply at him. "Yeah?"

"Megare has volunteered her services."

Harry stared, then nearly exploded "Megare wants to come out of hiding just to help us?"

"Her proposal was that you and I remain in hiding. She seemed to feel she could accomplish whatever was necessary without our contribution. We have both seen what she can do. She is old enough to rival Ancient Mai there, is my new estimation, after learning new information. But she has several impediments, one being her difficulty with verbal language--she needs…something to communicate with. Directly. It might be a rock. She…just knows, so long as she's dealing with something or someone who was directly present or contains the knowledge she needs in some other fashion. I'm beginning to think she can carbon date. In any case, written records are a trial for her. She literally does better asking the paper. But that's her only hurdle to clear. She is more powerful than any other human wizard I know of, and I know of almost all of those at that degree of power, Harry."

"I can imagine, considerin' what you been doin' for six hundred years." Harry thought, pressing his lips together, then said "She wants to go alone?"

"That was her idea, yes. She doesn't know what her absence will do to us, but she is probably correct that out of a lot of bad choices, staying in her stronghold with Cruachan is the safest place for us to be, currently. At least, as things stand. When she leaves, the situation will change. She will not be able to hide long, though she will certainly be able to evade any pursuit or attempt at apprehension. Besides, there is no law in any Council in the world against pretending to be dead, nor against conducting your business under an assumed name, so long as you do not break the Council's more inflexible rules, such as those concerning the Black, nor defraud anyone in relation to said inflexible rules. Those who come after her will not do so with precisely legal sanction, but there is such a thing as not-precisely-legal sanction."

Harry's dark eyes shone with those twin spots of light they could get when he wasn't happy; it had taken Bob a while to figure out that Harry's eyes teared with upset very easily--only a little, but without much provocation--and the gleams appeared as the saltwater made a lens that evened the contours of his eyes into perfect reflecting ovals. "Oh, yeah, they'll be after her. She has to have enemies or she wouldn't be hiding--every powerful sorcerer, and some of the weaker ones even, have enemies. Political enemies, even if no other kind. It's the way it all works."

"I know. I reacted badly to her suggestion myself, but promised I would put it before you as impartially as I could, and see what you thought of the idea."

"It could knock a buzzard off a shit truck at fifty paces."

Bob smirked. "I'll take a very rude and twisted pleasure in passing that along. She has another idea--she would come with us. And so would Cruachan."

"Mmm, wait, hold it." Harry started to sit up, but that would have separated him physically from Bob, so he just lay back down. Concentrating, he continued "Cru feels like he owes me big. If it's like you say, he knows we're nice folks, and he has instincts for telling nice folks from bad folks when it comes to who plans to hurt his folks, who right now is us. Right now, we're his family, aren't we?"

"Put that way, yes. I think his instincts have put him in just that position. He is from a house of Druids, and is no doubt happy to be among those he would consider wise men and women, magic workers, historians and other disciplines of scholar."

"Cruachan could give us an advantage. A big one. But…he'd be up against the only kind of humans in the world, probably, who could hurt or kill him…shit, I can't use him that way, Bob, it's just wrong. He'd leap right into doing it, of course. He said that thing about his people being Druids, not heroes, and heroes being a couple fries short of a Happy Meal when it came to the scream-and-leap thing, but by our definition--"

"He is indeed of a heroic bent, the sort who would fight to defend the right--or his loved ones or charges--at the slightest provocation. Like someone I know."

"I think I resent being compared to an extra-dimensional piranha/jaguar cross with a higher IQ than Marilyn vos Savant."

"Actually I think I'd be flattered, myself."

"That's 'cause you're a big weird perv and there's no telling what you'd be into," Harry grinned, lazily whopping Bob over the head with a pillow. Bob just took the soft whop without retaliating, grinning too. He stopped grinning when Harry went on, growing solemn himself, "So taking him with us is out. I won't have him--or Megare--hurt for us, just because they are, in different levels of reality, ass-kickers of the first magnitude. This is our problem. No one else is gonna take it in the teeth finding us a way out of it."

"I told her that would be your response, as it was mine." He sighed. "And there is another way. It's the one I hate, and the one you'll naturally agree to, you contrary little git."

"I'm listening." Harry slid a couple of random limbs over and around Bob's muscular person. Damn, he must've rowed on a crew or something. Did they do that on the rivers in England then? That ass was to beg for.

"There is a way we--or I, what with my hypotheses and very minimal research with different sorts of cases than ours--do understand; we also understand some of the basic principles simply as wizards. But there is still a great deal we don't know--for example, the effects of continued--continued use of the single body for that long--"

"You could possess me!" Harry said brightly, hearing it coming and bouncing to a sitting position, trying not to bruise any of Bob's limbs as he did so. "Of course. Well…" he frowned. "I mean, if you can still possess me. Cruachan says you still vanish from the dimensions he's familiar with--i.e., all the ones we usually move through, plus x more--when you dream with me; it's…like I pull you in, or back in. As if you were going back into your skull. You can still come inside me at that level--where if I didn't want you there you'd just get the bum's rush from my defenses."

"Until I had actually possessed you," Bob reminded him doggedly. "Your defenses will not work if you deliberately let me bypass them and take over the voluntary motor control of your body."

"Oh, my God."

"Harry, it's a terrifying thought for most people; I won't be insulted if you--"

"No, no, stupid, don't you get it? If you possess me, you'll be alive--you'll be Hrothbert of Bainbridge, the wizard that was so powerful the local Council held a drumhead to not judge you and pass sentence, but to specifically pass a sentence that could bind a necromancer as powerful as you from returning. The penalty for killing with the Black is death, Bob, not what they did to you. You don't see skulls from people who gave in and used the Black for what seemed like good reasons bouncing all over the landscape; those people were simply killed. You weren't. You might come back and you might be just as powerful if you did. And even if you stayed dead…Bob, with my body to live in, you'd be you. And if we figure out how to do it, you'd be you and me, and we'd be the most powerful sorcerer that ever lived. We would have--to put it mildly--the element of surprise; there'd be no way for a significant number of the world's Councils--its most powerful sorcerers--to organize in time because self-interest is the only way they operate together. They work together when there's something they all want. That's it."

"They would, to the last woman and man, want us dead, Harry."

"But they wouldn't have time, like I said. They have no alliances of trust, no friendships or bonds of loyalty, just waiting to be called on. Everything that would or wouldn't be done would have to be hashed out from square one. Their own paranoia would give us the time we needed to get the information we want on our situation; and we'd be powerful enough to handle any one, or a few, at a time."

"What if what we find out is that you are trapped inside your own body for the rest of your life with me controlling your movements? Amongst all the rest of what we need to know, of course."

Harry pondered. "We could try trading off. We could try…making it so either of us can run things. I know it's not too bright to try to get fancy this late in the game, but if your hypotheses are correct it at least might be possible; and think of the edge it could give us. Say we do manage to blend our power and intent to use it enough--it's not impossible one of us could be taken out, leaving the other one able to act, and with both our power at his disposal. I'd bet at least the sharing of motor control has been done before, by people who wouldn't leave any records 'cause they wouldn't want anyone to know, not if it was voluntary. Come on, Bob." Harry held his hands out, took Bob's, pulled them together, held Bob close. "Come on. Come inside."

"I am inside you, Harry, I don't think it would be a--"

"You know what I mean. Try this--take me. Take me completely, and then ease back, down to this level, and out."

"I don't know how long that would naturally take, with you in such a state now. I can put you into something much like an anaesthetized twilight; you would be aware, but removed, a bit. Or I can make you sleep through it, if you prefer."

"No, let's go for the trank." Harry blinked excitedly at him, the moon making bright gleams, different lights, in the dark pools of his eyes. "Let's try it."

"I'm going to be sick with this sentiment I'm continually drowned by at the way you trust me."

"I'm gonna be sick if you don't shut up about it. I love you and I trust you and you'd never, never hurt me, and get over it. We don't have time for this any more."

"You are quite right, my darling. We don't. All right…lie down…"

Harry did so, took a deep breath, and closed his eyes.

"That's it, my darling. Just count your breaths, and relax; I'll do the rest."

* * *

Harry dreamed he was floating. He rose from his bed in the guest room he and Bob shared at Megare's, bumped into the doorframe, backed up and bumped into it again, then floated carefully backward and sat down on the bed. His body moved without his volition, and he couldn't make it stop, but it wasn't an alarming sensation--not like being unable to run from a nightmare animal or any such. This was more like he'd been told being stoned was like (Harry couldn't deal with other recreational drugs any better than he did with any serious amounts of alcohol). He tried to speak, and couldn't, but his body seemed to try to speak for him. All that came out were strange noises. A pair of disembodied red eyes appeared before him, and he heard a booming voice that made him jump--sort of--but it was a known voice, a friendly voice. Then Megare came in the door, and everything had to be all right then. He tried to smile, and nothing happened, which for the first time started to annoy him. Then he felt his face smiling, and words forming on his lips--words of greeting, it sounded like. He felt too fuzzy and removed from the situation to pin down exactly what he was saying. Or what his body was saying. Strange. All very strange.

His body lay down, with Megare's hands supporting his upper arms so that he went down without a hitch, and she adjusted his head on the pillow a little. "There you go, Harry and Hrothbert," she said, and kissed him on both cheeks. Then she smiled, and touched his eyes--his lashes fluttered against her fingers; it made him close them, and he was immediately asleep again.

* * *

"Hello, my darling; you're awake," Bob informed him. "And you've been successfully possessed, about which I'm sure you're thrilled, and I'm quite disgruntled." Bob kissed the ear he was murmuring into. "Not because you're all right, but because I can find no reason so far not to continue to experiment with this idea. I did vanish for the length of time I was inside you in any capacity--sharing your dreams, or…more than that."

"Running my voluntary motor nerves." Harry smiled. "It worked. I remember it like a dream. Sort of…like being stoned? Is that what it's like?"

"Very likely, though I'm no expert. You understand that you were, for all intents and purposes, sedated. It wouldn't be like that if I did it while you were fully conscious. I only wanted to see whether or not I could do it at all, under circumstances that would bring the least amount of trauma to you if anything went wrong."

"Except for the bruise on the bridge of my nose--we're gonna have to talk about me being taller and having a different center of gravity and stuff--I'm totally untraumatized, as far as I can tell. Where's Cru?"

"He has taken to making check circuits of Megare's home; he is learning her magical methods, and it's a way to do so that falls easily within his instinctual inclinations. He'll be back soon to be sure you're all right; and in any case, he is a hearth imp. He would know if someone in the house were hurt."

"You are awake again," Megare said, coming in with a tray that contained a pitcher and juice glasses. "Here is to drink. Tea I use. Very centering. With honey," she added, which cleared the look of "eeugh, herbal tea" that Harry's face had started to evince. Bob rolled his eyes and accepted a glass graciously.

"So, you accomplish everything you set out?" Megare said, setting the tray down on a bedside table and sitting on the bed. She was wearing a floatably light red silk caftan--another garment whose cut was modest, whose material was not transparent, and yet managed to make her look like sex on a stick. The garments in question were inevitably very comfortable-looking, and that was doubtless the reason behind her wearing them, but it still drove Harry just a little crazy, though Bob, eyes wandering over her as she moved and a smile playing around his lips, seemed to like it about as much as Bob, Harry thought, likely would. Pervy old coot.

Okay, he was a sweet, tasteful (usually) pervy old coot, and he and Megare did flirt. And it was Harry's own fault he didn't. Still.

"Okay," he said--the tea seemed to be mixed with some sort of juice as well as honey, and he had another swallow; it was sort of green-tasting, and good, with floral notes in the fruitiness. "Next we try it with me awake, right?"

"No, next you take a nap," Megare said. "The tea will help."

"Did you drug me?!" Harry said, staring, then noticed that Bob was drinking out of the same pitcher, and didn't appear alarmed, though that could have been because he was dead.

"No, not much, at least, it make you relax, that is all. I drink it sometimes for headache if I read too much. I have given it to women with cramps and babies with the belly pain, too. It will not hurt you, you paranoid brat. Call us suspicious."

"I'm afraid it's my fault," Bob admitted, swallowing his current sip. "He's used to my going to any lengths to spare him a little of the discomfort he lives and breathes. Sometimes I do it over his own objections, since…" he smiled at Harry. "I seem to be bound to him only…in the sense my soul was bound from journeying on. I need not obey him now."

Harry blinked at him and grinned broadly, leaned over and kissed him.

"Yes," Megare said, nodding sagely. "I too would be nervous if my lover were constrained to obey me. Never know if they truly understand, truly believe, truly desire…or simply make the best of what they must do." She shivered in distaste. "Who would have a slave for a lover."

"You would be surprised, milady, though I am certainly of your opinion as well," Bob murmured.


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the characters and I don't own this story.

**_LOUD AND CLEAR! I DO NOT, HAVE NOT AND WILL NOT EVER OWN THIS STORY!_**

**This story is the property of Tang Guangzhen who was kind enough to give me permission to post this here. Any flames about that will be used to fry your ass.**

**Thank You**

* * *

Harry had been napping, after developing a headache as he and Bob practiced focusing their wizardly abilities together--or, rather, practiced trying to; Megare said once that she had a feeling their current course wasn't the way to go about fusing their abilities into one, but since she didn't exactly have a Dummies book on the subject lying around the library, she'd just let them continue in their efforts, unhindered by her lack of ability to express her particular twitch with their method. Cruachan appeared unusually pensive as well, which for him translated to noticeably less booming and bounding. Which was actually kind of a relief. When a semi-visible, semi-physical creature was bounding around the room, you ohmigod never knew which way to dodge, and usually ended up frozen in place, fighting the urge to hit the dirt and present the smallest target possible. 

Bob had dispossessed Harry--or however that would work, semantically--about half an hour ago, saying the headache they were getting was interfering with his concentration too much, and that the reason for the headache wasn't exotic--no neurological problems, just some enlarged capillaries here and some shrunken ones there, and that they were both in need of relaxation, aspirin, and plain black tea if they could get it. Megare gave them her tea/juice/honey relaxation potion instead, which worked fine for Bob but made Harry a little sleepy; this wasn't surprising. Harry had the physical system to be messed with, and Bob received only the echoes and generalities of the messing. So Harry had lain down to doze while Bob did a little more reading into their predicament.

Megare was there when Harry woke. She was sitting on the bed in a leotard and tights--a red leotard and dark plum tights, matching her lipstick and eye shadow, and complimenting her olive skin and near-black, red-highlit hair perfectly. Her posture was straight and relaxed, her hands held up before her in a mudra, her fingers folded intricately before her lower belly. Harry recognized the pattern from his studies of yoga asanas and related subjects; it was the one for balancing sexual energy.

"Hi," Harry said, and her eyes opened. They had been mostly closed while she directed her gaze beneath them a bit upward, and breathed quietly but strongly through her nose--not quite the Breath of Fire, used to bring more active energy into the body, but close.

"Hello," she said, and smiled. He loved the way her big teardrop-shaped eyes crinkled at the corners just slightly when she grinned.

Oh, screw it. "Are you deliberately flirting with me, or am I just a horny bastard? I know you flirt with Bob, you both do that, but I can't tell if you are with me."

"Harry, of course I flirt with you. I flirt with the imp, you have not seen that? 'Helpful imp, very cute.' I simply make it obvious it is flirting, and not trying to…"

"Unsettle? Lead on? Tease?"

"Correct, none of that. If someone seems…confused or uncomfortable--" she shook her head definitively. "It is my way to be friendly, that is all. If it is not fun for both, it is not friendly, and I stop."

"You aren't a flirt," Harry realized, grinning hugely at what had been puzzling him about Megare. "You're just charming. Debonair. You're like Bob, except like you do it. Uh, it does get me horny occasionally, I should mention."

"I know that, young Harry. But you are liking it, so…" she shrugged. "I like it also, to be getting a bit excited sometimes." She smiled. "For example, Bob is very sensual man, shares it--usually quite tastefully--ghost or no ghost. He is a ghost, nothing can happen, yet is nice to feel heat in the firebox anyway, no?"

He looked away, feeling his face get a little warm. "Yeah, I guess you're right, and you're right that I wouldn't have done something like ask you to slide on top of me about a week ago, when you came and joined me and Bob in bed in the morning, if I didn't like it. Sorry for trying to blame you for driving me crazy."

She shrugged. "Is what men do. They want a woman they do not want to want, but they cannot stop--even if she barely know he is there? She is deliberately provoking him, end of story."

He frowned. "I like to think I'm a little more enlightened than that."

"You are. You continued to wonder what was happening; my teasing was only one possibility to you, and not one you considered very likely. Listen, Harry, unless you would like to do something about that right now--" she gestured at the lump in his jeans, which caused him to fall from his elbows back onto his back and pull the pillow over his face, "--we have ideas, ones I hope will help. Oh, dear--Harry, I am too old to see this as anything but reflex--" he felt, for God's sake, a maternal pat on his hard dick. That should NOT have been possible--that was the last straw; Megare was not human. "Women's bodies respond too like that, and we can feel it--men could see it, if they cared to look closely enough at how we walk and move, but they generally do not. Other women often can see, though. Oh, my--I have embarrassed you so terribly you are getting soft. I am sorry."

Harry began to laugh, near hysteria already. "Well, how would you feel if your aunt whoever that you used to have a massive crush on and now think you may be finding genuinely desirable sat there looking like utter canned heat and patted your hardon, talking about reflexes? Yes, thank you, I am embarrassed, and I want a side of fries and a large coke with it, it's gonna take a while to eat this one."

She was laughing, as he'd intended, and he pulled the pillow off his face, grinning. "I think I can control myself, Megare. Though I'm surprised you'd be willing. I know you have the perspective on age and everything that Bob has, but I'd think you'd be worried I'd bounce us off the bed and break your tailbone again."

She cracked up anew. "I am warned now," she said. "We get too close to edge, I lift us back to the middle. Or Bob can grab us."

"Eep." Harry blinked. He wasn't sure if he could handle them both at once, at least not at first, and he was glad the imp would have no reason to want in on the deal, but Megare was continuing with the idea that had brought her to wait for him to wake anyway. "As I was saying, we think the problems you are having--partly it is your separation," she said. "You and Bob are careful not to do anything that would…" she frowned. "Mix you up. You keep your own synaptic patterns in your part of neuronal network, he stays in his, where you both have access to lower areas of brain which control voluntary motor function."

"Yeah, that's right." How did she do that? Harry couldn't do that, and he listened to Bob talk like that all the time. Of course, the freakin' hobgoblin could do it, too. Maybe Harry was just a moron.

"Also there is Bob's body that he has now, whyever it is so. You--of course--do not want him to lose that. I think it is…separate from the possession when you let him in to you and practice trading who is driving. It makes you too careful in the wrong ways, protecting it."

"Uh huh." He sat up; it made sense. "Are you seeing something that makes you think this, or is it just a hypothesis you've come up with from other clues about--"

"It is my idea," boomed the room, and this time Harry just jumped a little and laughed as the not-furry not-rounded not-critter bounced around for a minute, working off some of his exuberance, before getting his shit together and bouncing onto the bed--which did not move--facing Megare and Harry. He was grinning, his claws were vividly displayed on the bedspread, and his eyes glowed; slanted, adamantine slits of radiant intelligence.

Harry had about decided he really liked this genius attack imp guy. Or girl, whatever; hearth imps were created by their abodes and those who lived there, and had no gender. Cruachan went on "My lady Wizard Megare and I have been conversing on the topic as we observe your work with the Wizard of Bainbridge, in order to monitor and correct you when you pass safe limits. We came to no conclusions we felt were cogent enough to present to you--until recently, however."

"Well, I'm all ears. Uh, somebody want to call Bob? Or should I?"

"We go to him," Megare said, unfolding one short but perfectly-proportioned leg and getting up. "He is in library, and we may need materials we have organized there."

* * *

"My, my, my," Bob said, smiling slowly as he glanced up from his current book at Megare leading the way into the library. "You certainly meant to have no truck with prying my concentration from whatever it was mired in, did you? You are a picture of both elegant simplicity and untamed nymphlike beauty, milady Megare; thank you for so gracing us."

Harry wondered how anybody else had got a girl when this guy was alive. He was outright lustful without being even remotely rude. He wondered if, after all, Bob had been set up in the skull so somebody else could get laid now and then.

"Flatter me too much, my Lord of Bainbridge--I will cease to take you seriously," she warned him, smiling and coming up to where he was setting the large book he held in both arms down on a table; she placed her hands on his shoulders; he settled his on her waist, and they kissed lightly, caressed each other's faces just a touch, and moved apart again, Megare stepping back in a graceful one-two--as Bob first took her hands as she moved away, and then released them at just the right point, one-two up, one-two back. It was so perfect Harry wondered if they'd practiced it. Then something told him, no; it was graceful and easy because it was friendly. There were no agendas, it wasn't head-game flirting, so there was no awkwardness or stiffness. In this particular case, it looked like dancing because it was. Megare, and her "just knowing"? Making it so Bob could "just know"?

Bob looked up at him, and considered him a moment, smiling. Harry couldn't help smiling back, because it was his adoring-Harry look, and it always made Harry smile bashfully at the floor for a moment and get blood rushes here and there. He felt silly, being as old as he was, but he couldn't help it; it affected him that much.

This time, he realized, the adoring look was because Bob knew what he'd been thinking again, the same as he often knew what Harry was feeling. Bob was proud of his insight, for a wizard so young and, even for his age, inexperienced. It was one reason Harry had never doubted Bob's love was genuine, whatever form it was currently taking. He was deeply proud when Harry surpassed him at any wizardly activity, be it instinctive or learned. Actually, Harry got the feeling Bob would be just as proud if Harry learned to sing as well or better than Bob, but that was hardly likely.

Megare was looking between them. "You are having conversation without us again," she chuckled.

Bob took a deep breath, closing his eyes to break the melting gaze he shared with Harry, and said "You and Cruachan have ideas for us. I must admit, at this point, we are in desperate need of input, both of us, before we begin to be irritable. There's no dealing with either of us when we get snippy."

"He's right about that," Harry muttered. "I get crabby and oversensitive--and occasionally assholish--and he gets snotty and hurt."

Bob shrugged a that's-about-it.

Megare smiled. "We will try not to irritate you too much. Right, then, Cruachan has said how Bob compares two living in one body to…sharing a house. Correct?"

Harry looked at Bob.

Bob shrugged. "I didn't use that imagery, but I can see where a hearth imp would see a metaphor there, and it's accurate, as far as it goes--using some but not all of the same facilities and spaces, different functions in different places that some use and some don't, that sort of thing."

Harry nodded, looked back at Megare, and leaned his ass against the edge of the huge polished table he was standing next to. "You think we shouldn't be trying to be roomies in my body?"

"You are good at that. You do that when you dream; you are now trying to do it in the areas, with the mechanisms, and at the levels of energy and activity you would need to do it when awake, yes?"

Harry nodded. "Close enough for jazz."

"But there is a difference; Bob is, in a sense, possessing you when you dream, but only to a point. He directs and controls; the fact that he could not do it without your trust and cooperation is not a difference in what you try to accomplish now, since he also has that when you are both awake, no?"

"Yes," Harry said firmly, with a sideways grin at Bob. "Yes, he does."

"You're going to give me a paranoid complex eventually, Harry," Bob sighed.

"Is it still paranoia if you think everybody's after someone else?" Harry wondered.

"Oh, do shut up, Megare has important insights to impart," Bob said, coming over to take Harry by the waist, down near the hipbones, and with a cooperative hop from Harry, hoist him up sitting on the table he was leaning on. Bob folded his arms and leaned against said table in fake-friendliness genuine-threat, right up against Harry's body, glaring at him. Harry giggled and so did Megare. Even Bob didn't quite manage not to smirk when the imp grinned, too. "So, Megare?"

"Right, then, I am talking, Cruachan is talking. Harry is shutting up. Bob is coming down off yellow alert, please." Harry doubled over at that, heels kicking in glee, but true to his tacit promise, he didn't make a sound. "All right," Megare went on when they seemed to have collected themselves, and she and Cruachan had exchanged a prepatory glance--how did they do that with no more face than the hobgoblin had? Except when he grinned.

"There are levels of neurological activity," boomed Cruachan, "which are not those of motor skills, voluntary or involuntary. They are run on separate nerve channels and different types of nerves. Their electrochemical signal-transmission fluid has different components, to some degree, at least."

There was a pause. He could have been talking about any number of things, but it was obvious what he had to be talking about here.

"Cognitive impulses," Bob said softly, "occurring in the cerebral cortex. It is your supposition that to share one body, Harry and I need to be one person?"

"No," Megare said quickly. "You already share one body all the time. You could learn--and will learn--to go from one to the other in charge of voluntary motor control. But you confuse your body with so many people. It would be easier for you to let one or the other of you control the body if that level of your neurological functioning received direction from only one consistent pattern; it would help it to develop reflexes, to train the muscle memory, to allow the reflexes already present to function."

"We know it seems like a contradiction," Cruachan boomed, but more softly than usual, and very deep, making things vibrate. "But we both have reason to believe it would work."

"If it doesn't--what happens? Bob and I end up in a coma? Schizophrenic? Catatonic? Exactly how do you propose we try this?"

"Harry, we would not propose anything that could hurt you so badly--not if you let us help."

"Help how?" Bob wondered. "And would Harry have any trouble regaining sole resident status in his own body after this? Because I will not try it if there is any question about that."

Megare said "There are places, times in trying--it is not all at once, not all or nothing. You will always be able to stop. If for some reason you cannot, you get confused, something, then Cruachan and I can stop it."

"How can you stop it?" Harry asked, calmly, just looking for the information.

"We can 'anesthetize' you. We can send you--easily and quietly--into a delta-wave sleep, or in this case, a very short coma; there will be no meaningful synaptic activity at all in your cerebral cortex. When the activity related to the procedure has ceased, we will wake you up. Bob has put you, Harry, into a similar state, more than once. It is almost identical to something we enter every night in sleep, so long as we sleep well; if we do not enter that state, along with a number of others, we become very sick. This method of entering delta is not dangerous when done correctly."

"Apparently everybody has had at least the short course in this kind of stuff except me," Harry complained, half-smiling, but obviously with his thoughts elsewhere, considering the problem. "And the hobgoblin? Were his people healers or something?"

"Cruachan would help me, monitor me," Megare explained. "He would not actually change your brainwave patterns."

"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Cruachan watches the watcher," Bob said. "I suppose we've answered that question."

Megare smirked. "I think Socrates answered it when they asked him."

"It was probably that stupid daemonion," Harry said. "Okay, double failsafe. I say we try it. Whatever 'it' may be, exactly. One question--not to be insulting, aunt Megare…" he waited while she stuck her tongue out at him and smiled back, then went on "I realize you obviously understand the concepts here, but where are you getting the language? Sometimes you have problems with 'Breakfast is ready'."

Megare pointed at Bob. "I get from him. So does Cruachan."

Harry looked at Bob. "Uh…really?"

"This is news to me, Harry," Bob said, shrugging and raising his eyebrows.

"He is dead," Megare explained. "Very easy to hear--not with ears. Damn, is no word. In any case, having much better simulation of human body does not seem to change that."

"Well I guess not," Harry muttered, then leaned over and kissed the top of Bob's head; his seat on the table made it easy to reach. "You're just no end of helpful, aren't you?"

"Stuff it high and stuff it deep, Harry," Bob sighed, making Harry giggle and put his arms around Bob to squeeze him tight. Bob set his hands on Harry's forearms and squeezed back.

"Not frightened at all, are we not?" Bob asked, turning his head up and back to look into Harry's eyes.

"Hell no. Not of you."

"I didn't mean of me."

"Um," said Harry. "It's just that this is starting to turn into a Star Trek episode."

"Did that with the replicator," Megare muttered.

"Well, if it is, you'll recall that in the less…coherent episodes, everyone came out of it all with their individuality intact," Bob said. "Even that poor fellow with the lovely voice who ended up in a mud fight with his brother after it was all over."

"This will not impact your individuality," Cruachan said, sounding puzzled. "It will merely make you able to act and think as one."

"He sees a difference we do not," Megare admitted, "but he can see dimensions we cannot, too. We must forgive the occasional semantic confusion."

"Oh, this is not confusion. It will be something they do. Yes, it will be made possible by a state they are in, when they are in that state. The state will be constant while it applies. This is what will allow the things you said earlier, that will keep the body from being so confused. But to use their wizardly enteric energy as one directly supplementary force to another--that will be something you do, made able to do so by that state. Eventually, you will do it reflexively, but only in the same sense humans eventually develop a reflex to step on a brake pedal, whether there is one there or not, to slow a car."

"A car?" Harry said faintly.

"I have been on that tourist-trap hill for a long time," Cruachan reminded them. "One hears things. In fact, one could say that after as many years as I was up there--with the memorization skills of a Druid--one hears everything."

"Good answer," Harry said, nodding, eyebrows raised in an expression of being impressed. His eyes, however, had the unfocused appearance of being overwhelmed.

Bob wasn't doing too well either. "Cruachan--Megare--might we…have a bit of time to think about it? I'm sure of our answer, really, but…"

"Of course," Megare said, unfolding her small person from the corner of couch she'd been perched in. Cruachan grinned, bounded to the fireplace and vanished. This didn't mean he was gone, of course; he might just be in the fireplace, where he often liked to be invisible. "You must think about things. You will call when you are done. Talk and think today. You should sleep first, perhaps, and have a small breakfast."

"That sounds like a wise course," Bob said. Harry was just slumped, one arm still around Bob to rest on, swinging his feet and looking pensive. "I'm sure Harry agrees."

"Huh? Oh, sure."

"Things I must do," Megare said, and headed for the door. They watched the view as she did so, stepping carefully in stocking feet in a leotard; she smiled encouragement and waved at them before she left, pulling the huge wooden library doors closed.

"I think better in bed than in libraries," Harry said, and laid a hand along Bob's face, kissing the daylights out of him.

"It can be a stimulating environment," Bob admitted.

"I'd swat you, but I don't do that kind of sex," Harry said, hopping down from the table. "Though maybe the pun counted as pain already. Shall we?"

* * *

"Hello, my darling," Bob murmured, kissing his ear. "You're dreaming."

"I sort of figured, this time," Harry said, staring up.

They were in his dreaming bedroom. There was one difference; the walls with their big windows were all intact, and the bed hangings were there; right now they were hanging from the canopyholding-type frame that usually held them away from the bed--it left the space straight over the bed uncovered. And the roof was missing.

"What is it?" Harry asked in a hushed voice.

"They call it the Lagoon Nebula; I've forgotten its NGC number, if I ever knew it. It's a magnified version; I made it look as though it would on film over a time exposure, using a large-aperture scope."

"Really large aperture like the Hubble?"

"Modeled on that. But it's something I saw one night, when I was far-traveling. I focused in. The 'twister' effect caused by the action of Herschel 36 was fascinating, so I went to see if anybody in the mundane astronomical community was studying it--the Hubble hadn't been functioning properly for very long at that point--but lo and behold, a picture much prettier that I could show you without assistance."

"It's…"

"Yes, breathtaking, I know."

They were lying side by side, gazing upward, Harry with his eyes the size of hubcaps. "Y'know, I did say I wanted to see things the way you saw them, the way you remember them, if you could show them to me that way."

"I could have, but this shows more detail, and it shows…things I was able to discern in various ways, but which, looking at it in your visual center, fed by my memory, rather than by the entire experience, would be missing much of what I found so profound about it. This puts a little of that back."

"It's closer to what you remember than what you can show me without the help."

"Precisely, my darling."

"Wow. Say, you been followin' when they're gonna send up that great big-ass scope to one of the LaGrange points? I think the new issue of Sky and Telescope is out."

"I'm afraid I haven't checked; we've been busy lately." He smiled as Harry felt briefly stupid at forgetting that, though he smiled about it. "Don't be embarrassed, my love. Your enthusiasm is one of your most charming qualities."

Harry smiled a moment longer, then sighed, his eyes wandering the huge nebula, each fragment of cloud larger than a hundred solar systems, as though it were a mandala; finally, he turned his wide eyes back to Bob. "What's gonna happen after, Bob?" he asked softly. "Are we ever gonna have any peace?"

"I don't know, my darling Harry," Bob said, shaking his head. He could feel his eyes tearing, and see Harry's doing it just a tiny bit, as they often did, giving them that odd I'm-unhappy shine. "But one thing that will be assured is that we'll be together."

"I'd give just about anything for that," Harry sighed. "And I know you would, too. You did."

"Yes," Bob sighed, looking up at the shining overhead. "It is not certain that we would be…hunted down, harassed, as I know you fear, and as I fear in the abstract. I believe it is more likely we would simply no longer be able to stay even as far out of the politics of the entire magical world as we have been able to. Doing what you need to do--using your unique abilities to help people, and perhaps making a living that would feed a churchmouse--will be harder in some respects; in others, it will be much easier. You will be targeted even more for the endless sweetwater river that runs from your heart; and I will be very busy keeping people from taking advantage of you. We'll argue more, because you won't be able to give up in frustration and send me to my skull--"

"--you know I'm sorry I ever did that. That was in my asshole phase. You'd known so much that was so important--for so long--without telling me…"

"Hush, my darling, I know." Bob smiled. "I know you felt we were on an equal footing all this while. Now, though, we truly shall be, and you will feel the difference; I guarantee it."

"Okay, now I'm nervous." Harry chuckled.

"You should be, you naughty wizard. You will likely also be harassed by would-be apprentices."

"Me?"

"Yes, darling, if you accomplish what you seek to do."

"If we accomplish it."

"It will not be my name that becomes a magical household word, my love."

"Bob, you're more than my partner. You're my kingmaker. It always comes back to you somehow."

"If you start singing that revolting Bette Midler song--"

"You can drown me out with something from Rocky Horror. What I mean is, whoever you were once, and then whoever you were after that--now you're going to be something completely different."

"A man with three buttocks?"

"BOB!" Harry sat up and pillow-bombed Bob with every ounce of strength he possessed. "This matters! You're going to be in danger too!"

"Perhaps, but that's not what matters. You, my darling, are all of that."

"No I'm not." Harry grabbed Bob by the shoulders and sat him up with a yank. "You are gonna take this seriously if I have to tattoo it onto your brand-new body, because especially after this…ah, hell, Bob, how could I ever live without you? I know you love me. You're gonna throw yourself in harm's way too now, just to do it ahead of me. But you're what I love. Doesn't what I need count at all?"

Bob had closed his eyes and let his head drop a moment, trying to think how to approach Harry's tirade--and Harry's hands felt strange on his shoulders, an odd tingle. He opened his eyes and found himself staring into the huge, wet brown orbs of a Harry possibly even younger than the one he'd first met. "You have me," the child whispered. "But what about me? Don't I get to protect you? Don't I get to have you? Is it all going to be you making sure I'm safe without even asking me, telling me, something? Are you gonna leave me one way or another, Bob?"

"Oh, mercy," Bob whispered, and swept Harry close and tight, Harry's arms squeezing hard around his neck. "I promise you right now, my darling, that I'll discuss everything with you. You'll never find out I'm dead by some drippy note in which I declare my love and tell you how this is for the best. I'll never do anything royally stupid without informing you first, which is something I'm going to hold you to as well. Partners don't make such decisions for each other; it's not romantic, it's not loyal, it's not devoted--it's selfish. Partners decide together, no matter how painful it may be for at least one of them."

"I can do that. Tell Bob if I'm gonna be an idiot, got it," Harry said into his neck; Bob could feel a smile, but he also felt tears, and Harry was still an eleven-year-old. Harry twisted a leg through Bob's nearest one and held on tight with it, too.

Bob explained "That way, you see, I can be there whenever you get blown to bits, and find all the pieces to put in the dustbin, and get you home to reassemble again." He kissed Harry's head; Harry quickly lifted his face for a slow, gentle kiss on the mouth. Bob tried to pull back from it once, but Harry grabbed the back of his neck and followed, and Bob let Harry run things after that. He did proceed the kiss with another to Harry's forehead, his temple, and his cheek, taking his time about it. God, how he wished he could have touched Harry when Harry was really this age, and needed it badly.

"I wish you could have, too," Harry murmured. He rested his head on Bob's shoulder and stroked his chest. Bob was going to stop him from that, but Harry was like this because he was afraid, was feeling deep insecurity he couldn't talk about or show any other way--but here, in his own mind, couldn't avoid showing somehow--and if Bob kept stopping his attempts at garnering reassurance, he would hurt Harry unimaginably, just because he himself hadn't the imagination to realize that this wasn't an eleven-year-old. This was a thirty-seven year old man, in need of comfort, and dreaming himself looking like he felt.

"My folks let me sleep with them when I was really little," Harry said quietly. "When I was scared. I remember a lot to be nervous about, but they were always there, they never got impatient with my…clinging. And then my Dad let me stay with him, but not as often, 'cause I was older."

"I would have stayed with you if I could," Bob said, knowing now the kind of thing that it would help to hear. "If you'd asked me. Or if I could have offered. I would have." But he couldn't have told Harry he'd never leave him. Harry hadn't been his master then, and slaves don't choose.

He could say it now, though. "I'll never, ever leave you now, Harry. I won't throw myself away to save you, I won't…do something foolish without your knowledge to prevent you from doing it, I won't…I won't do any of that, if you won't."

"I won't." Harry buried his face in Bob's neck. "I won't. I swear."

"So do I. I swear."

"I love you," Harry whispered.

"And I you," Bob whispered back, just before his eyes overflowed. He bit his lip and finished "I swear, my darling."

"We're gonna do this?"

"We knew that," Bob said softly. "But yes, darling. We're going to do this."

"Yeah. I knew that," Harry murmured. "Guess I must be pretty nervous."

"It's only natural. We don't know what might happen. We do know this--Megare, and Cruachan to a lesser degree, can stop whatever is happening at any point and shut everything down."

"The delta-wave kill switch."

"That's one way of putting it, yes. And as you mentioned, it's double-failsafed."

"I said that when I was a little more enthusiastic. You know me. I jump into stuff with all four feet and then my life is never the same afterward."

"I am very familiar with that tendency of yours."

"And this time, what changes is gonna be big, big, big. Plus we don't know about after, when we need to…"

"To separate."

"If we can, what it'll have done to me, to you, whether we'll…Megare and Cruachan couldn't tell us what would happen after, just that the process would be…we'd have choices about whether and how far to continue. Nobody said anything about what would happen after we'd been…one person, in a way, for however long. And when it's all over, if we make it, we'll have to rely on people we can only trust if we can give them an unassailable, guaranteeable reason why they should help us. Let's remember that these people may decide the simplest way to handle this would be to a., kill us, or b., just let us die if we conveniently end up doing that."

"It isn't fair to ask Megare to predict the future; she is an enigma of time, Cruachan of space, but neither of them can do that only for those reasons--it's too complex an issue with other sentients involved, for one of many reasons. But we can return to Megare. She would help us for love, not prudence, whatever our situation turned out to be."

"If we have to, maybe. I don't want to endanger her any more than we already have."

"Remember, as you're controlling your urge to run off and save the day, that Megare has such an urge as well, and might undertake to aid us on her own recognizance."

"You mean…um, if we don't come back to her for help, if we need help, she's going to come to us."

"Not difficult to figure. She won't let us go without following us with some sort of observation spell or technology. She hardly trusts anyone in the magical community, either; she's a hermit. Most of her many friends are people like Cruachan--less powerful or less human-connected daemons, spirits, chthons, and other such; or they're more mundane types, if human...all right, mostly less powerful. Cruachan is an anachronistic exception whom I suspect wasn't just one of the crowd even in his own day."

"Yeah, well, I'm a pretty good example of what kind of life you lead if you're a fairly nice human wizard looking to help people out and earn a reasonable living with your power, as opposed to…you know. What everybody else does."

"Pursue the insane accumulation of power and wealth--a great deal of the power through magical treasure, so I suppose it qualifies as both--through magical means, about which one then becomes quite paranoid? Perhaps not a literal psychopath, but nervous past reason all the same."

"Yeah. That's what I mean. I can kinda see why she gave up. It's just way too intense. No fun at all in life, man."

"I would have disagreed a long time ago, but with the perspective I have now…"

"Yeah, I hear you."

The voice that spoke the words was a slightly lilty baritone. They looked at each other; Harry's 37-year-old face looked back at Bob.

"But I think we could hack it," Harry said, touching his own cheek briefly.

"And if we decide otherwise, the Himalayas do have quite a lot of acreage," Bob said speculatively. "I hear good things about Sikkim in the spring. Perhaps we could be on Megare's mail route."

They both smiled. Harry lowered his head to Bob's shoulder again. "Think we could still help people?"

"Megare does."

"Besides idiot wizards like me, I mean."

"So do I." Bob kissed his head and stroked his back. "We'll be all right, my darling. We always find a way."


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the characters and I don't own this story.

**_LOUD AND CLEAR! I DO NOT, HAVE NOT AND WILL NOT EVER OWN THIS STORY!_**

**This story is the property of Tang Guangzhen who was kind enough to give me permission to post this here. Any flames about that will be used to fry your ass.**

**Thank You**

* * *

In the kitchen, Megare had food and utensils scattered from one end of the place to the other, and something was boiling like hell in a huge stewpot on the stove, and a basket strainer with congealing oil under it was sitting next to another pot that was smelling powerful and making ominous blooping noises. Come to think of it, with that level of spice/food smell, both pots were likely smelling powerful. She was sort of squatting on the counter like a monkey over a cantaloupe half, devouring something with single-minded intensity. Cruachan was on the other side of the island counter she was perched on, with his whatever-it-was on a plate, and was having his version of a good time with it, though only wizardy type humans could see that anything was happening to it at all. 

"Megare, these manners. I'm shocked."

"I hear you in the shower. You are not shocked, old undead man." She took another huge bite. "Mm. Yes. Get very fat. I do it right."

"If you don't mind my asking, what the hell?" Harry wondered, gesturing around, taking in the kitchen with a long look up and down and scratching his head.

"Pierogi. For your friend the angel. He/she/it coming today."

"What? Tameriel? Did you summon her?"

"No. Little message, I sent after you said you would miss date with her?"

"I meant to ask you about that. I know the Ars Pauline back and forth--"

"Is not in the Ars Pauline. I sent…" Megare snatched up a handful of paper napkins and applied them to her face, apparently staving off some kind of enunciational/masticational disaster. "…sort of a text message."

"You texted an angel?!" Harry stared. "Angels are…I dunno, busy, you know?"

"Is why have cell phone. Her service big pain, she say." Megare started hoisting basket strainersful of boiled pierogi out of one pot and lowering them carefully into the oil, which immediately got as violent as the boiling water, in a more seething sort of way.

"Megare, be careful. Those things you're handling are heavy, and hot."

"Why I am on counter, you think, ghost who knows everything? Cannot lift otherwise. Harry, grab those big straining bowls and take out the fried ones. Put in the straining bowls over the towels."

Harry moved. He wasn't going to argue with a good pierogi. "These are kosher, right?"

She just gave him an oh-please look, and he said "Um, yeah, okay."

"Bob, go to my lab, call your friend. Heptagram and all the rest set up. You just need to do."

"Of course, of course…" Bob hurried off toward the lab.

"You're a lifesaver, Megare," Harry said, "in about every way there is. I just…it, um, maybe with you squatting on the counter covered with grease isn't the best time--"

Cruachan snagged another pierogi. It flew through the air toward the imp, landing right under his floating adamantine eyes.

Megare wiped her face with her bare arm and smiled at Harry. "Is no problem."

Harry still looked disturbed, he supposed, because she tilted her head and looked sort of sad. "Is okay, Harry. I love you, too. You are special. So is my lord Bob. Please save pierogi, begins to be too crispy."

"Huh? Oh!" Harry saved the latest batch of dough-wrapped potato she'd lowered into the oil.

"One more batch, then please get Wyborowa out of freezer while I go wash. I will get my ears."

"Oh jeez, you heard all that?"

"You didn't turn off sick com."

"Ah, hell."

"Sounded fun."

Harry grinned, dumping his latest basketful into the strainers. "It was."

Megare hopped off the counter and skidded in the buttery, oniony grease she showered on the floor; Harry had just put down the basket strainer and he threw out an arm, which she caught herself on with both her own. "Oops."

"Be careful, willya? I'll clean that up."

"Thank you." She scurried away toward her own room.

From down another hallway, the one leading to the big sitting room with the window--Megare's place could be somewhat warrenlike, and things seemed to shift around on occasion, as in every wizard's abode large enough for it to be noticeable--came a deep intoning. Bob was in good form that day, maybe owing to the morning sex, Harry thought, eyeing the grease and the pierogis and the generalized mess and the imp and the whole bit. "Heck with it," he muttered, and lifted a hand; light began to coruscate along his arm.

"Wizard--mmmph--Dresden!" said Cruachan; apparently he couldn't do whatever he did to eat, and talk at the same time, very well, either; it was true his mouth wasn't involved in either operation, if that was in fact a mouth where the teeth were. "Not until the Wizard of Bainbridge is finished!"

"Oh, it's only a little bit of enteric energy..." Harry edged from foot to foot.

"Except in cases of emergency, release no magical energy when another wizard is conjuring nearby," Cruachan intoned, sounding suspiciously like Bob.

"Hell, you're right," Harry sighed; things with him and Bob were touchy enough, speaking in terms of the physics of magic. Harry went to the big-ass triple steel sink for cloths and stuff to hump the job instead, using the clean sink basins to arrange the stuff he didn't know what to do with yet. He hoped Tameriel didn't mind if he ducked out to clean himself up, too.

Though not without a pierogi. He put down his current rag and snatched one from the latest batch in the draining basket. Mm-mm good.

"Do not forget the vodka, Wizard Dresden," Cruachan said. He seemed to be bouncing up and down, if you could go by the distortion lines and by the fact that his eyes and now teeth were in vertical motion. Hm, a vodka-drinking imp. That might not be good. They'd better keep an eye out.

Megare hurried back in, looking delectable, in a little red spaghetti-strap top and matching sarong around her hips, little feet bare, hair up. Her makeup was very light this morning, but she was, now, quite clean. She saw Harry and made a really horrified face. "Augh. Poor Harry. Go shower, I will get vodka and make imp help me finish."

"I think I'll do that," Harry said, "thanks." He took his grease-covered person back to the guest bedroom.

While he was trying to get his hair to act right--again--he heard extra voices in the kitchen, or at least one; he wondered if the sick com worked both ways. Then he wondered how to shut the damn thing off. Megare shouldn't have to listen to him and Bob going at it every time they did it awake.

He needed to do some wash; he ended up in his jeans, which had made it okay, and a thin white t-shirt that barely qualified as clothes. His boots were iffy, so he went barefoot rather than risk tracking grease everywhere.

He went back into the kitchen, then through it into the dining room, where he found a hard-light hologram that got its oomph from Harry himself, a pretty little possibly inhuman wizard, a killer Irish hearth imp, and a seven-foot Jewish angel in white samite, all of them chowing on pierogis. The dining table seemed to have its own area code, and he'd thought it a bit much when he'd seen it first, but neither room nor table looked too big any more.

Cruachan said "Please sit down, Wizard Dresden," as he passed Harry on his way back to the kitchen and the next batch of pierogis. How many of the things had Megare prepared?

"Visualised dactylation, Harry," Megare said, waving him over. "Come here, be friendly."

"Hi again, Tameriel," Harry said, pulling out a chair where there was an empty place setting, to Bob's left; Tameriel had the head of the table, since she was seven feet tall at the moment and needed the elbow room. Harry had actually kind of wondered if she'd flown through a storm on the way to the summoning where he'd last seen her and she'd shrunk. Jewish angels were big suckers. "Sorry, I mean your grace."

"That's all right, I'm off the clock," Tameriel said, taking Harry's hand to squeeze it carefully. Her--his--whatever, the hand's skin felt human, if very soft and smooth. Then she let go of his hand and made a face at the grease. "Erm, sorry."

"No problem. I'm gonna be covered again in a second anyway."

"Is that why you've come to the table half-dressed?" Bob wanted to know, raising an eyebrow and knocking back a shot of Wyborowa. Harry hoped he intended to limit himself.

"Bob," Megare muttered, rolling her eyes. "Let be, he is hot. Like sex, I mean, though after the kitchen probably other way too. He is fine."

"And I'm sure you mean that the other way as well," Bob murmured, smirking, and then tearing into another pierogi.

"I'm dressed like this because I haven't washed any clothes," Harry explained to Tameriel. "Sorry."

Tameriel blinked. "I'm seven feet tall and in a long white gown. You're dressed more appropriately for fried pierogies than I am."

"Uh, yeah. Good point. Could you pass the Wyborowa?"

"Be careful, you two," Megare said, snatching the bottle before letting Harry have it. "You and Bob, you will end up with double drunk. Ah!" A giant platter of steaming and crackling pierogis had materialized on the table in front of the angel, and Cruachan then became evident at his spot by Megare. "Helpful imp. Thank you."

"Oh, this is great, Megare, thanks, I have had a day," Tameriel said. Harry was now thinking of her as a guy maybe half the time, because she had the voice of a well-muscled person seven feet tall--which usually, though not always, makes some difference--and it sort of hovered at a deep alto sound, which was deeper than most people thought. She sounded like a drag queen with a very pretty voice. "Or make it a night, I mean. So, you two came to find that lousy daimonion had flown the coop and you ended up with this guy?" she thrust a thumb at Cruachan, who grinned briefly.

"Yes; apparently the entity you directed us to has a bit of a nasty streak," Bob said, dissecting a pierogi. This being Bob, he likely was just curious, but it still looked a little odd, like eating a piece of popcorn with a knife and fork. "What Megare said is true; he tricked our friend here and bound him to the same spot. You're sure you can bring in the daimonium in question?"

"Oh, I'll get his sorry little ass here, all right," Tameriel said, knocking back another shot. "Don't worry."

"I thought Cruachan knew most of what would help us with the wards," Harry wondered.

"Oh, it is not for wards we want daimonion," Megare said, with an almost vicious grin. "Though that is nice plus."

"Well we're not gonna beat it up or anything, are we?" Harry asked, alarmed, and Tameriel, Megare, Bob and Cruachan all variously chuckled and grinned.

"He's going to help us with your possession, Harry," Megare said.

Harry blinked. "He is? Uh--do we want him, um, involved? I mean--"

The angel said "Don't worry. There's nothing he can do to you with us present. There wouldn't be much he could do to you all on your own, but in any case, no, it just sounded like you needed someone who can do what I know he can do--he's not the only one, don't worry. And I thought this guy--Cruachan, is it? I thought he might like the opportunity to speak his mind, as it were."

"As it were," Bob said, nodding.

"Oh, man," Harry said weakly.

"Have another, Harry, they are small," Megare said, poking a basket of pierogis across the table at him.

Well, Tameriel was an angel, in a particular system that had rules, laws and circumstantial edicts that were usually enforced by angels--it seemed to be the only practical purpose they served. He/she/it would likely be into justice and stuff in a hands-on sort of way. Harry sighed, and reached for the vodka bottle.

* * *

"Your link," said Tameriel, comfortably ensconced on some of Megare's large, luxuriant floor cushions, one of which had served to hold Bob and Megare both through a winding, slightly drunken conversation a while ago. They were in the main sitting room, with the window on the sea, for Tameriel's comfort, as it was one of the largest in the house.

"My link?" Harry said, still feeling intimidated. He was a little tipsy, though he'd had only one shot of Wyborowa.

"With my lord stuff-himself-to-a-coma," Megare said, motioning to where Bob was zonked on the couch. His human-facsimile body, as previously noted, proceeded apace. The forces that created it only ceased to generate it if he was involved in some operation that required him to join with Harry directly, such as Megare's healing; or if he chose to be directly in Harry similarly, such as when Harry was dreaming. This was why he'd been physically present to welcome Megare when she came to crawl on top of them with her magical ThinkPad, and assorted referential sundries; Harry, like everyone else, spent most of a normal sleep not dreaming.

"You mean the curse," Cruachan did not boom. He'd had quite a bit of Wyborowa and his voice was still very big and chesty in a James Earl Jones sort of way, and everything he said sounded like he was declaiming, but at a nearly normal volume. Otherwise, he sounded completely sober. He was in the fireplace, of course, quite invisible.

"Yes," Tameriel said, and had another slug of Wyborowa right from the bottle. Jewish angels, apparently, were very hard to intoxicate. He/she/it also seemed largely sober. Of course, your average human Tameriel's current height and weight would have to be pretty determined to get drunk to feel much of anything, too. "What must originally have been Bob's curse. I've wanted to take that thing off him for a couple of centuries, and there have been times I know he'd have thanked me; but he'd die completely, and I'm not sure what would happen to him then. Uh, don't tell anyone I said that."

"No problem," Harry said hastily, making "it's cool" motions with one hand. "But, um…if the curse is linking us, holding us together, how can it be stopping us from…joining, the way Megare thinks we need to, to be able to do the sorts of things we need to do? Well--like she said, she partly thinks it's us deliberately trying to stay separate. But the curse…"

"The curse--" Megare hummed softly to herself for a moment--she had a deep, chocolate sort of voice, with gravelly almonds--and said "Think of this. Think of a hinge."

"A hinge? Like on a door?"

"Yes, like a door." She held her hands up in the air in a symmetrical configuration, and he thought at first she was doing the mudra for "the world", but realised that though the position of her hands was reversed on all axes and facing each other, her fingers were curled together in the middle. "Like this. A hinge connects, and it holds apart. The way the curse connects you gives him a…more of a body, a complete pretend body, instead of only being able to see and hear things outside him, and things outside him to see and hear him."

"It's true a skull wouldn't give you much that way," Harry muttered with a side-nod.

"But you do. But though the curse connects you, it holds you apart. While you are connected this way, you cannot be connected the way you need to be if to do what you want, yes?"

"Yes. I see what you mean. I wonder how you know it, but I see what you mean."

Tameriel shrugged. "I knew it."

Megare rolled her eyes and flapped a hand at him/her/it. "You are angel."

"The imp knew it," Tameriel added, smiling now.

"Imp is multidimensional Druid spirit. Me, I am only old wizard woman."

Cruachan made a funny noise and Tameriel's eyes got huge before a grin appeared on his/her/its face; Cruachan was grinning too.

"That's such a crock," Harry said, resting his chin in his palm; his elbow was braced on his knee, where he sat on the hearth.

"All right, all right, is crock. Harry, I know because Bob say so."

Harry frowned. If Bob had known it, why didn't Harry? "I know most of what he does. Current events, I mean."

"Yes, but I ask him just now when he figures it out."

"He's unconscious."

"Mostly. But also he is dead. Easy to hear."

"Yes," Harry sighed, and he swore the fireplace was giggling. "So you said." Megare was either drunker than she seemed, playing cat and mouse, or liked to play cat and mouse when she was drunker than she seemed. "You know when I said I love you?"

"Yes?" She grinned in anticipation.

"I don't take it back, but I'm putting qualifiers on it. My lawyer's office will mail them to you in the morning." He tried not to smile at her, but he couldn't not smile at her; he ended up grinning while she laughed and clapped.

Bob rolled over on the couch. He was wearing something similar to what he'd had on the night he sat in the floor with Megare talking about Harry's enthusiasm for risking his life and what to do about it, but he was down to the loose white lawn lace-up shirt, now pulled free of the high-waisted velvet pants, as he'd been hit by the grease storm as hard as anybody else (the only ones unaffected were either in samite, off which everything apparently rolled; or were not technically entirely in the room with the grease in question).

"Have you been talking to my mind without involving me again, milady?"

"Been listening. Takes only little coaxing." She held up her thumb and forefinger together by a squinted eye to indicate how little. "Just a subject."

"Oh, bloody." Bob hauled himself up into the corner of the couch as everyone else looked amused. Bob was buzzed, but mostly just stuffed and sleepy. "I forgot how much trouble one can get into with a real body, or something that acts just like one, at least," he sighed. "You can stop smirking at me any time, the lot of you. I knew there were good reasons to take things slowly…"

"You are cute," Megare said. "That is why we smile. We are talking about how curse connects you and so holds you apart."

"Harry and I, you mean. Yes, I remember, vaguely. I've only been half asleep."

"I get you something to make you feel less stuffed," Megare said, and got up, heading for her lab. "You tell Harry."

"We shall, dear lady. All right, Harry, what haven't you figured out on your own yet?"

"That is an extremely deep question. For starters, since the curse is in the way of what we need to do--how the hell do we expect to get around that, since we don't dare lose the curse? You'll die. It's amazing how a damning can become a precious thing," he muttered.

"It's not only in cases like mine that at times…the curse one bears is all one may have that's of any value," Bob said. "Though I admit it often doesn't start out that way."

"Great, he's drunk and philosophical," Tameriel said, and had another swig out of the Wyborowa bottle.

"Don't let this bloody great cow fool you," Bob said, eyeing the angel. "She's drunk as a lord."

"Yeah, but nobody can tell with me, see," Tameriel said, and burped behind a gigantic, decorous hand. She/he/it grinned. Jewish angels apparently had blindingly white teeth.

"I've been meaning to ask," Harry said hastily. Please don't piss the angel off, Bob, he thought frantically, hoping that for once, their odd thought-sharing would work when they were awake and he wanted it to. "Do you have a pronoun preference for English? We don't have one to use for sentient beings that's neutral, polite, and singular."

"Yes, I've noticed that. Bob decided I was female a while back--I was short when he met me; he started calling me 'Tammy', and then when he remembered I have no gender he felt like an idiot. But no, no preference. 'She' is fine."

Megare came back in with something fizzy in a glass, which she handed to Bob. He took it, kissing her hand in the process.

"What have you learned?" she asked Harry, sitting next to him on the hearth.

"That Bob and I are probably screwed if we need this much help," Harry sighed resignedly. "We're already wizards, both of us, and check out who we've had to phone up for a hand." He didn't know whether to feel humbled by the angel or humiliated by the hobgoblin.

Or turned on by Megare, who was slithering into his lap. Oh, joy. Ordinarily he would probably actually mean that, but how was he supposed to concentrate now?

"You see," she said, sliding an arm around his neck as he perforce leaned back against the hearthstones, "that is where we need the help. We must find a way to keep the curse intact, preserve it. Bob will not need it while he possesses you; even if he is sharing, he still has living body--he does not need the curse to keep from dying completely."

"Right," Harry said, "I get that, but how are we going to store the curse? Most of the ways I know of to transfer a curse are designed to get rid of it via hitting something else with it. The rest are designed to lift it completely."

"Right. We hit something else with the curse."

"Ohmigod. No."

"It did the same to Cruachan."

"NO! We are NOT going to kidnap a little neutral spirit, no matter what he may have done! It's not our job to judge him."

"The wizards on your Council believe otherwise," Tameriel reminded him somberly. "Are you certain you do not have the right?"

"No, I do not. Neither does Bob. If Cruachan was the one who needed the curse-storage, here, then maybe, maybe I'd help with that. Maybe I'd be involved with that. But just because the friend of someone that you did wrong needs it…we're treating it like a convenience. Karmic justice isn't for us to hand out, especially not just because it happens to be convenient for us. The assholes on the Council can believe anything they want; I know better. Bob knows better, too." Harry glared at Bob.

"I do know better, Harry," Bob said softly. "But having been subject to the curse that I have been, and to the luck I've had with it up until you came into my existence, has given me a view of such situations you may not understand. I do not regard what we had been going to do concerning the curse and Socrates' daimonion to be a very severe punishment--or, necessarily, any kind of punishment at all. It isn't impossible it would agree to host the curse for a price while we need its help, since it is not a curse which would make a great difference in its existence. If anything permanent were to happen to the two of us, we would of course arrange it so that the host would no longer be bound."

"This is the only reason you even brought it up to me," Harry said softly. "You thought I'd buy that."

"I don't know what you mean. No one is lying to you, Harry."

"No, you're just stretching the truth. I don't know all your tricks, but if Tameriel gets that daimonion here, one way or another it'll be hosting the curse and I'll believe it's totally on the level. And it may be on the level. I'll just have no way to know that."

"Harry," Megare said in surprise, and he shook his head. "No. I know what he'd do for me, I know he'd go over my head to save me. No daimonion hosting the curse. Nobody else, either."

"I have a thought," said the fireplace.

Everyone looked at it and felt curiously unsatisfied, as always when looking at Cruachan when he was only half-, or totally in-, visible. "A thought?" Bob said, his voice very tight and controlled.

"Yes. Wizard Megare may be familiar with it. Have you ever heard of a bud-will?"

Harry and Bob both blinked; so did Megare. "A fetch?" said Bob.

"Yeah, that's what he called 'em," Harry said.

"I know of bud-will," Megare said. She was still stiff, sitting in Harry's lap. Well, that was going to have to be her problem; Harry wasn't backing down on this one.

"Part of the problem seems to be solving itself. If Wizard Dresden and the Wizard of Bainbridge are capable of creating a communal bud-will to host the curse, it will be bound to Wizard Dresden and the host body generated by the combination of the curse's specifications and Wizard Dresden's material, energy, and patterns. We do not as yet know the distance Wizard Dresden can travel from the Wizard of Bainbridge; it would be wise to determine that before any firm plans are made in any case, but if it could be done soon--"

"It wouldn't be the same," Tameriel said, "as a separate being getting cursed--we could rebind it, so that Harry and Bob in Harry's body weren't tied to it at all."

"That was plan," Megare shrugged, as though it all made sense to her. "We do not need to force daimonion, Harry, as Bob says. And if not that daimonion--"

"No. No other beings of any kind, sentient or otherwise. I won't curse anything for any length of time for my convenience--or for yours, Bob, I'm sorry."

"Don't ever be sorry for telling the truth, Harry," Bob said, sounding sincere, but distant. "I've always told you that, even when you were a child."

"Maybe it's how. How I'm telling it. Uh, I'm sorry if I blew everybody away back there--"

Megare sighed and slumped, stroking his hair. "You have the right to lose your temper, Harry, everyone to do that, but no one expected over this. Seem unreasonable."

"No, he's right," Bob said quietly. "Not that I would have lied to him--I wouldn't have--"

"I said you wouldn't have," Harry said softly, intensely. But he had also said "We're not doing this because I don't trust you, Bob," right in front of the world.

"--but he is right to be suspicious. Not in this instance specifically, no, as I have made him certain promises, and I intend to keep them; they were made to an adult, someone who understood the situation, even if Harry resembled a child at the time. Those promises preclude what he is implying; however, before they were made, I have, as he says, gone over his own head, even though he was more than old enough to be consulted about the matters in question. He was offended by that, as almost any adult would be; I can only ask forgiveness for it and offer the mitigation that it was my job to make such decisions for the first ten years that I knew him. And I love him, very much. Protecting him even from what I shouldn't is a difficult habit to break under those circumstances, not that that's an excuse. In any case, it would be ridiculous of me to blame Harry for trusting his instincts now, when I have complimented him on them so extravagantly and enviously in the past. Besides…he can probably feel my desire, my determination unspoken even to myself, to do exactly what he was saying I might. I said I wouldn't do it; I didn't say I hadn't thought about it at all. As I said, the habit is hard to break."

After what Harry had said--in front of the world--Bob was now saying, in front of the same world, "I forgive you and apologize that you feel you have reason to doubt me."

"I'm sorry," Harry murmured. Jesus, he was pond scum.

"No, Harry, what we were contemplating is not within your comfortable parameters, morally speaking; therefore, since this operation is all about you--and me--that plan is right out. Cruachan; please continue," Bob said to the fireplace, getting situated more comfortably on the couch.

"Wait a second, Cruachan," Harry said. "Bob…" yeah, this was excruciating, but Harry had distrusted Bob publicly, after all the things they'd done and said, and he deserved a public apology. "I'm sorry I doubted you; I didn't have a good enough reason to say anything but 'I can't hit anything else with this'. You did promise me certain things, and I promised them to you; we said, partners--no covering things up or going behind each other's backs, even to spare or save each other. I had no good reason to call you a liar in front of everybody; if I wasn't gonna believe you I should've called you on it then. But I can't do this, Bob. I still can't hit anything else with this curse. I can't, no matter why."

"It's all right, Harry," Bob said gently. "Honestly. Cruachan?"

There was a pause, during which everybody, even the angel, waited without a word (though everybody being so stuffed and drunk maybe there was more than one reason for that). Then Cruachan said "Very well. You all say you know of the synthetic creature, the fetch or bud-will. Are any of you familiar with their creation?"

"Not the mechanics, no, and neither is Harry as far as I know. I have some of the theory," Bob said.

"Know how to do; never do. Ah…never have done," Megare said. "Besides, I cannot do it; if this is what I think, Harry and Bob must do."

"Yes, it would be far simplest if they were to do so. The drawback, as has been stated, is that the pseudo-body the Wizard of Bainbridge is currently using, which is generated by the curse and Wizard Dresden's state of animated life, and which you do not wish to lose, must remain bound to Wizard Dresden, while the Wizard of Bainbridge possessed him."

"It can be--uh, we can get the curse to quit generating for brief periods, though it always comes back with new abilities--"

"I don't think of some of them as 'abilities', precisely," Bob said, making a wide-eyed face, then sighing theatrically.

Harry fought a smile, but kept talking. "--by having him deliberately…uh, by the curse not needing to project. By having him…resident in me the way he used to be in the skull."

"Harry, this is your skull we're talking about. That would be a great deal of activity happening in your brain. Me, you, the bud-will, the curse--theoretically, a human brain should be able to handle that particular volume of those particular things. But things like this often don't go according to the theory, no matter how thorough one's Gedankenexperiment, and we probably will not have any knowledgeable help upon whom we can handily call."

"We'll set up spells to use in advance. If we can just activate the damn things, they'll do their job."

"That would leave us exactly the way we are now--without the safety of being under Megare's wing."

"It's better we should die?"

"It's better we should think about options for the curse."

"I will accept custodianship of the curse, Wizard Dresden," Cruachan began, but Harry instantly shook his head. "No. Nobody else gets cursed to get our necks out of it."

"Besides, I think of something," Megare said, frowning. "Bob's body--it evolves, correct? It changes. Gets more things. Gets more real."

"Indeed it does, milady," Bob said. "As you have seen. Your potion worked marvelously, by the way."

"Good. Well, then--if it is not attached to mortal, living person, will body de-evolve? It did not evolve when attached to skull."

"You think what it's bound to will…actually that's occurred to us already," Harry muttered, wondering why he hadn't thought of that. "Maybe that's why I acted like such a bitch over the daimonion."

"Maybe you're just a bitch," Bob smiled.

Harry smiled back. "May be," he half-agreed.

"To be cute with each other later. The projection the curse generates," Megare said, staring closely at Bob--everyone knew why, including Bob; he helped by not fooling with her, just looking quietly back-- "is of a complexity similar to what it is bound to. The 'mirror reflection' aspect of the way it works now."

"You are probably correct, milady Megare. Please continue."

"We should, then, transfer curse to me."

"Megare!" Harry stood up. Since she was still in his lap, he had a choice of dumping her in the floor or picking her up too, and he'd done enough dumping her in the floor for one visit, but it took a lot out of his rant to be ranting at someone he was holding like he expected to be stepping over a threshold in a minute. "Nobody is getting cursed here except us! The bud-will--"

"Harry, no, this is your brain we talk about, this is your life, this is Bob's life! You must be unbound for Bob to join with you the way he needs to! I tell you why!"

"I must be unbound from Bob for him to join with me the way he needs to, not--"

"Hold it!" yelled Tameriel, and everyone shut up Right. Now.

"I," Tameriel announced, sighing and rolling her eyes, "will take the blasted curse."

"Uh," Harry said.

"Stop worrying, Harry. I didn't say I was going to substitute for you as the subject. I said I was going to take it. I'll hold it in the equivalent of a safe deposit box. Nobody will have to be cursed by it."

"My God--I mean, Tammy, can you…well, do that?" Bob wondered semicoherently.

"Yes."

"How?"

"Hard to explain. Helps to be an angel to get the details."

"Why didn't you say so earlier?" Cruachan wanted to know.

"Because I'm not supposed to do things like that," Tameriel said, leaning at the fireplace and giving it a big-eyed "duh" look. "It's beyond my purview. Even as we speak, I'm making up bullshit about having been trapped in a heptagram and had pierogies waved at me by desperate wizards who forced me into the whole thing. Dragging shit out of us that we're not supposed to tell you is what the Ars Pauline are for. You're rude enough for that, why not this?"

Harry swallowed hard. "Ah…Tameriel…we don't exactly want Jehovah pissed at us. I've done some Bible reading, professionally related. He wasn't kind to those who pissed him off, in the old testament."

"Back then, he wasn't kind to those who didn't piss him off. Ask Job. In any case, don't worry about Jehovah, he'll never know about it. Michael will probably never know about it. My boss will hear about it, throw its hands in the air and say 'Oy vey is mir' and that'll be the end of it until you get back. I'll also get the headshake and sigh whenever he sees me carting the damn thing around."

"You'll have to cart it around?"

"I know what I said, but angels don't exactly put anything in safe deposit boxes. It's kind of a comedown in the safety area, know what I mean? If you want to put something in safekeeping and you can arrange it, give it to an angel."

"Um…I didn't know that applied to nonmaterial things."

"Especially to nonmaterial things. Who else could deal with them? It won't feel like a burden does to you, don't worry."

"Well." Bob thought. "I suppose, if Tameriel is willing, and will undergo no significant difficulty short of telling her boss she's late because of car trouble--will your conscience tolerate that, Harry?"

Harry grinned. "Hell, I get Murph in worse trouble than that all the time."

"His policewoman friend," Bob murmured to a curious-looking Megare.

She smiled. "The pretty one, with the little girl."

Bob smiled too. "Yes, her. Harry, put Megare down carefully and move away from her slowly, please."

Megare began giggling. Harry gave Bob a sour look, but set Megare on her feet. He did have a tendency to forget to put her down if he was excited. Or still a little drunk. Maybe it was the healing she radiated. Okay, maybe it was the sex appeal, whatever; that could be plenty healing, too.


	13. Chapter 13

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the characters and I don't own this story.

**_LOUD AND CLEAR! I DO NOT, HAVE NOT AND WILL NOT EVER OWN THIS STORY!_**

**This story is the property of Tang Guangzhen who was kind enough to give me permission to post this here. Any flames about that will be used to fry your ass.**

**Thank You**

* * *

They were in their room, Tameriel on one side of the bed, Megare and Cruachan on the other. Harry was lying down, Bob sitting next to him, holding his hand.

Tameriel looked at Bob. "Take him; I'll deal with the curse when you're safe."

Bob gazed at Harry. "You will see me. In dreams."

"I wasn't sure," Harry whispered. "They'll be your dreams, too."

"Close your eyes," Bob whispered back.

Harry felt Bob's fingers ghost over his forehead, just like they'd felt before, when he couldn't really even touch, and--

* * *

"Harry?" Megare's voice, then again, more softly. "Bob?" 

"Mm." Harry's eyes flickered open. Nothing else moved.

//Bob. FYI; I have no access at all. I sure hope you do//

//I do, my darling; there was no room for error. Don't worry. The reason you have no sensation is that the feeling of being paralyzed, or of moving to any serious degree without willing it, is terrifying when one can feel; whereas without sensation, one usually experiences a dissociation, rather like a dim sort of dream. How are you//

//Better knowing I won't be able to feel my body until I'm not worse than paralyzed//

//I'll give you tactility and anything else that applies over whatever I cede to your control, and nothing else; don't worry//

//I'm not, now//

//Tell me if there's anything you want me to do//

//I will//

"I'm here, Megare," Bob said. "So is Harry. He's awake, but he has no control right now. I suppose Tameriel thought it would be safest that way, the simplest form of possession--we can work out the rest as we have been. There'll be no breaks until we get it right, now, though."

"I will help you rest when you need to," Megare promised. "If you cannot do what must be done on your own, and I must help--and stand ready to send you to delta--that is what we will do; we can try, first, to see if you can do it on your own."

"Is Wizard Dresden well?" Cruachan boomed. They'd been out for a while, or hearth imps sobered up fast.

"He's fine, for now, Cruachan," Bob said. "Don't worry; I will take all best care of him."

"We know," Megare said. "Your voice is interesting."

"I'd noticed that myself. It's lovely when Harry uses it, but I couldn't sing with this to save my life. Harry's noticed too; he's a bit put off, I'm afraid."

//Just…my voice, sounding like some English guy//

Bob laughed, and raised a hand to his face. He could feel a difference. This face smiled, and cried, and showed everything there was to see, so easily. "He isn't thrilled with the change. Where's Tameriel?"

"I have been keeping you sleeping for a while. She had to return to her duties; she had the curse with her. She said to tell you--she wish you luck, and call her when you need of it again," Megare looked bemused. "I think that she will be watching you especially."

"What, ah, what did it look like?"

"Like lunch box. Spider-Man. Stupid, it not look like anything."

"Of course. I just…wondered. Anyway…" he extended his arms and managed to sit. "Oh, my. I feel…tall. Harry's generally kept control of locomotion so far, so…"

//You are tall. Try to remember that, okay//

"Yes, Harry, I'm sure I will," he muttered, holding his hands before him. "I've never had total control before."

"I never not hear you so good before," Megare said, and smiled rather sadly. "You are not dead."

He realized she was right; what Harry had said was true. After all, Harry's body wasn't a constructed projection of forces, and minimal materials, designed to reproduce the sensations, actions and reactions of a human body. It was real, and alive. And whenever he possessed Harry like this, so was Bob.

"You were right, Harry, I'm alive," he whispered. It felt oddly vulnerable, especially since now, he couldn't protect Harry with his already-deadness, either. "It's…disquieting."

"You were dead much longer than alive," Megare said. "You will be dead again, when you and Harry…do not need to share his body any more. Do not worry."

"I'm not worried, exactly," Bob murmured. "Harry, do you fancy letting me try to get us up and about?"

//I won't feel it when we break my nose on the door; just try to take it slow, 'cause you're the one who'll have blood all down your face otherwise//

"Thank you for your kind permission, my love," Bob sighed, half-smiling, and turned; he'd done this before, they'd worked at it, but Bob had never been free to try it all on his own.

"Let me help." Megare held out her hands.

Bob shook his head, making himself blink. "No, I need to--"

//Let her help//

"I will open the door," Cruachan said, disappearing.

"Harry insists," Bob smiled, "and it is his body." He held his hands out to take Megare's.

* * *

As Megare dropped him into the black hole of sleep that night--she'd helped him get showered without killing himself, too, and he'd needed the help, what with all the half-backward and rushed instructions from Harry (having that much body hair and such a heavy beard was complicated in ways he'd never suspected), he realized Harry had already been asleep for a bit, and what was more, Bob'd been very careful to keep quiet and lie low in their brain so as not to wake him. Well, it was good to know he did that sort of thing more or less automatically. Perhaps Harry would, too. 

Presently he realized he was walking down a beach at night--a night with an odd color in the sky; it wasn't quite black, wasn't really a color--and someone was running toward him. Tearing full out, actually, and he realized who it must be, from size, speed and his current situation--the young Harry he saw sometimes when Harry felt frightened or insecure.

Blurred, shapeless figures topped the rise behind the running figure; they didn't really look like anything precise, but he felt an immediate sense of dread when he looked at them. Harry could not see them at all, he realized, and to him it wasn't a sense of dread, it was full-on horror. Bob changed direction, had to dodge at the last minute--and caught Harry, swinging him around.

Harry screamed. "Let me go!"

"Harry, it's me! It's all right!--Here, look at me."

Harry stared into his face in terror and in no recognition.

He'd told Harry himself--the dreams wouldn't be the same; Bob was no longer dead, discarnate but not possessing, welcomed past his barriers. He was only another dreamer now; he couldn't share such beautifully programmed backgrounds and surroundings with Harry. But he'd told Harry his lucid dreaming wasn't completely hopeless, though it was obviously failing him now; Bob's own lucid dreaming, though, was very nearly perfect, and he knew it.

"I'm here to help you. Stay with me." He turned around; the shapes were coming nearer, but Harry wouldn't look at them.

"Look!" He pulled Harry around in front of him, holding him in close to his body, and held him facing the oncoming figures. "Look. They're shapeless, nothings. They're not really even there. They're fears--but formless, meaningless. They can't hurt you." He raised a hand, and the stumbling, crabbing lumps of greyness began to evaporate, turned into something like fog or a miasm of dust, and were suddenly sucked away, straight up, into the sky, until they were nothing, gone.

"Did you do that?" Harry managed to ask, turning his head so he could raise his face and look up at Bob.

"I did," Bob said, nodding reassuringly.

"Are you a genie?" Harry asked.

Bob smiled and smoothed his hair. "Are you still embarassed about that, my darling?"

Harry only looked puzzled, and Bob sighed, opened his eyes again, still smiling, and said "I am not a genie. I am a sorcerer. And I can teach you to be a sorcerer, too."

"Really?"

"Really."

"I thought I was dead," Harry said, sounding distantly puzzled.

"What?" Bob said, taken aback.

"My mother, and my father…and then, my body, my body doesn't have any…feeling…I'm just…floating around. I thought I might be dead."

Gods, Harry was remembering through a twisted filter of dream and bad memories. "And you," he looked up at Bob. "I think I knew you, but you died, too."

"I died," Bob said, "but I didn't leave you. I'll never leave you, if it's within my power to stay…and a very great deal is within my power, now. For example, we're going to find a way to help remind you when you're dreaming, so you can do things like what I just did."

"It's a dream?"

"It's a dream, my darling. You and I are the only real things here. Nothing need be feared, or thought of, unless you want to think of it."

Harry stared into his eyes what seemed a long time, then finally said "We've done this before."

Bob smiled broadly. "Yes, we've done this many times. Control was easier then, but we were dreaming your dreams; and I wasn't resident--well, being partially outside, I could…never mind. It's only that they're my dreams too, now."

"Why do you call me…um. What you call me? Besides my name."

"Because…" Bob dropped to one knee and sat back on his heel, letting the hand that held Harry's shoulder slide down to enlace their fingers. "…because I love you, very much, and I have for a long time."

Harry regarded him seriously, evidently taking this announcement as important. "Who are you?" he asked. He sounded mystefied and fascinated.

"You call me Bob," Bob replied softly, just loud enough to be heard over the breeze. "Occasionally, you call me baby--which, coming from you, I can cope with; but no one else had better ever hear about it."

Harry grinned and chuckled.

Bob went on "I was your teacher, and I can be your teacher again, in a number of ways; just as you will be mine. You were, in a sense, my ward. You were your uncle's ward, legally; but you usually saw him only once a day, at the evening meal; otherwise he simply received my reports."

"So you and I spent a lot of time together."

"Yes, all day, many days, and many nights, too. I had never been interested in children; but I loved you with a passion that made me see it only takes the right child, just as with anyone else. And with me, perhaps, it had to be the right time. You made me…gentler and more tolerant. I had already changed a great deal, over the centuries since I died; you were what it took to make me completely human. And you have made me completely human, for the time; I saw how alarmed you looked just now, when I said I'd died, but I'm not dead any more. You made a choice that brought me to life--and for now, we're closer than we've ever been. We'll stay that way, as long as we need to."

"What will we do then?"

"It won't be that different. I'll…for all practical purposes, be alive again, too. We're not sure just how it will go. We still have to find out. I'll tell you all that later, if I still need to, after you've remembered how to remember."

"How do I do that?"

"Here, sit with me." Bob caused a soft blanket to materialize under and around them on the sand; Harry blinked. "Wow." He went to his knees and touched it, then sat down, and when Bob put an arm around him, he leaned into him.

"The first step is to get you dreaming lucidly; that will help bring you up to date more quickly than anything--I'll only have to make the right suggestions to you, to inspire the correct associations. All right, I need you to pick something and focus on it, like the horizon, or a patch of the sky, or the--"

"You?" Harry wondered.

"No, my darling." He kissed Harry's head, half-expecting Harry to leap for his mouth, as the fully-cognizant adult Harry in an earlier-style body had a disquieting tendency to do, but this one just smiled a little. Bob continued "I'm part of the dream, this time, but still a bit too real; you can't control my appearance, or much of anything else about me, so I need you to focus on something else. Then we'll work on making it look very sharp and clear, and then on changing the way it looks, all right?"

"I can do that?"

"Yes, you can. You've done it before. I've put you through a numblingly long list of different kinds of visualization exercises; you'll have no problem. Your reflexes will remember, as you work at it."

Harry nodded mutely, and scanned around, looking for something to isolate; he pointed. "How about that dead tree at the top…the top of the…"

"It's a small rise, and the tree isn't dead; focus hard. There are leaves; you can just see them in the light."

"…there are. Barely…"

"Yes, but they're there. Now, then, we're going to make the tree leaf out more. Focus on it again, see it very clearly…"

* * *

WAKE UP 

Bob jerked all over, as though an electric shock had run through him--as one might have had, he thought, panting in reaction, as he felt Harry's agitation.

//I've been awake for something like fifteen minutes, but I can't be sure because I haven't been able to so much as open my eyes. Do you think we can put control on an up-for-grabs footing when we sleep//

"We can't do that or we'll sleepwalk. I'm so very sorry, beloved. We'll have to find some way for you to signal Megare."

//Megare//

Bob took a deep breath, let it out, and sat up; lying to his left, apparently still asleep, was Megare, with her arms around the pillow and her face mostly buried in it. "You didn't think she'd leave us, did you?"

//No, I just…hadn't seen her, I forgot//

Megare was now waking up more, blinking and being so surrounded by hair she couldn't see and trying to sit up. Bob reached over to give her a hand and knocked her over onto her side.

//You moron//

"I'm terribly sorry, Megare--I forgot that even Harry has a little trouble with how long his arms and legs are, first thing in the morning," Bob said, and realized that the twitching Megare was doing under the blanket of her hair was cackling.

She shoved herself upright. "You sit there. I will move, for now."

"That sounds like an excellent idea. Harry, do you remember dreaming last night?"

//Um…yeah, a little, you were there…you were there most of the night, I think. It wasn't like//

"No, it won't be like sharing your dreams with me; I was dreaming, too. The difference last night was that I was dreaming lucidly and you weren't. I spent quite a while working with you on that."

//Ah, Bob, you've always been so much better at that kinda thing than I am, you don't really think//

"I think it can't hurt to try. And you did tell me that you would rather spend time with me in a dream than have the usual anxiety-inspired dreams you tend toward. Something about Blue Meanies and no pants?"

//…I was a kid, wasn't I? In the dream. You made…you made the pain go away//

"Harry?"

//I love you. Thanks//

"No problem at all, my darling," Bob said quietly.

//I haven't slept that well…since the first dream, the one where we touched, finally//

Bob closed his eyes and whispered "That was an exceptionally satisfying experience for me, as well."

//In the dream, last night--I didn't remember much of anything. A lot of my life experience just wasn't there. It was just me there in the dream, my memory was…cut off, it happens a lot//

"It's not an uncommon experience in dreams," Bob said. "I don't think you regained your memory during our work last night, but you were making changes in the surroundings on your own."

//I remember that, too…but I think I'm going to miss dreaming the other way. Though I admit, sometimes--like the time our toboggan flew off the track--I'd wake up wiped//

Bob chuckled.

"Asleep again? We must feed Harry."

Bob opened his eyes to see Megare standing in front of them with a red silk kimono-style bathrobe on, holding out a tray with toast, eggs, coffee and juice. Bob's eyes landed on the coffee and he made a slight face.

//Bob, you are gonna drink that coffee or you're gonna find out what the withdrawal is like. Remember the fifteenth century//

"God forbid." Bob took the tray.

* * *

That day was much as the first had been. They started just walking, getting used to it. Everything was done under Megare's eye; when Bob asked if there wasn't anything she needed to be tending to in her own doings--Harry was feeling a bit guilty--she told them that what needed to be done immediately was being handled by Cruachan. "I consider to get a hearth-imp like him myself," she said. "I have never had house-spirit, as no wizard does. Our magic is too strong; a house-spirit cannot thrive in it, our houses do not make them. But he has been doing well." 

"He's the house-spirit of magic workers--strong ones," Bob reminded her. "And we haven't been doing much in that line, though you have so many standing spells running I suppose that would do it if anything could--"

He tripped again; Megare caught him midair, and raised him upright again, from across the room.

"Megare, I was wondering--why were you on the counter to handle those heavy pots and baskets? They were hot, too. You could have dactylated-- "

"I just made I dunno how many pierogi that way! Dozens! Hundreds! All at once. You did not see where everything, ingredients, cooking objects, pierogies--fell where I drop them?"

"Oh, my. You'd worn out the muscles then. Yes, the kitchen was quite a sight."

"Like you say, pots heavy, and hot. Stupid to do, when my mind-hands might slip."

"Well, the pierogies were delicious. I'm going to let go of the wall."

//Are you really sure you wanna do that//

"Harry, Megare is watching; we can't fall. And there's nothing in the middle of the room there to fall over. I'll just walk to the other door."

"I watch, Harry," Megare said, with a smile meant to reassure, but she seemed a bit wistful in general.

//Don't kill us//

"I shan't. Now let me concentrate. " Bob let go of the doorframe and started carefully out across the rug. The window that looked out on Greece, thousands of miles away, was partially mirrored by the lights inside, and Harry's silhouette looked like he was walking a tightrope, a bit.

//Don't flap your arms so much, you look like a pissed-off ostrich//

Bob blurted a laugh and promptly lost control; Megare had him again, setting him gently on his feet.

"Don't make extra work for Megare, Harry," Bob muttered. "And keep in mind that it's your body we're using here, not mine."

//And you're making me looked like crazed, flightless fowl//

"My darling, you strongly resemble a gawkily tall child a great deal of the time anyway. It's adorable. Don't be ashamed, we can flap all we like. No one will care."

//You know, there are all kinds of ways to kick your ass from in here//

"But it'll only be kicking my ass to spite your own, since you're in there, too."

"Boys," Megare said tiredly. "Not to bitch at each other. Pay attention. Learn to walk. I think maybe you should be barefoot. I know you want to speed up the learn, but..."

Bob sighed as he started to go over sideways, flailing, and Megare had to steady him in midair yet again. "She's right, I think. These boots…almost as bad as the rest of your taste in clothing, not to mention heavy as--"

//You had BETTER NOT start dressing me in what you were wearing. I do not do velvet pants and gathered lawn sleeves. God, you looked more like an angel than Tameriel does. Think closely about that statement before you thank me//

"Actually I was just going to comment on how interesting it is that you knew how to properly describe a gathered lawn sleeve."

//I will tie your nuts in a knot while you're asleep// Bob was surrounded by a feeling of trying not to break out laughing. Initially it wasn't his, but then his own joined it.

"You'll be the one who wakes up to it."

Harry began to sing, loudly and badly//Doooo your ears hang low, do they wobble to and fro, can you tie them in a knot, can you tie them in a bow//

"Why do I get the feeling the word 'ears' is a euphemism in this particular ditty?"

//…can you throw 'em over your shoulder like a continental soldier, do your EARS--HANG-- LOWWWW//

"Bloody hell," Bob sighed.

//Of course, you look hot in the gathered lawn sleeves, angel or not. I would look like an idiot and I'd rather skin a roadkill to cover my ass//

"I thought you had."

//Those are my favorite jeans//

"I know. God help me."

* * *

//This is easy. I could do this at seven// 

"Your father was an illusionist, " Bob said, and the three werelights scattered and fizzled out again. Megare, he hoped, wouldn't mind their plundering the room into half-light; they weren't really ready to try summoning their own, since that was an extremely simple magic that was usually done by reflex, like touch-typing. Or, maybe, more like moving one's muscles in any simple pattern, like the one for walking, that didn't work--they knew this for a fact--if you thought about exactly what moved after what. Reflex was something Bob couldn't afford to try to work by, the mental components Bob provided clashing with the body-memory of the neuronal components inherent in the body parts being moved, and in the brain itself, which was Harry's, not Bob's. He wondered if this would count to the ancient Irish as the highest form of hospitality, and realized he was getting punchy--his construction body didn't feel the changes wrought by different kinds of stress nearly as much as a real one, and this was becoming…stressful. He sighed. "I thought it might be easier with the werelights; they're easy to see and nearly weightless, and--"

//And that's the problem; you need to feel the weight, when you catch and when you toss. That's how your other hand knows where to be//

Bob sighed. "Very well. What would be more appropriate? "

//Um…see those crystals// A sea shell full of small crystal spheres sat on one of the couch endtables. Bob went and, de rigeur, knocked the thing onto the carpet; not even blinking, he scooped the spheres into a rough mass together.

//You got used to that a lot faster than I thought you would//

"It's quite a logical idea, my darling. Better to aim, and slam your intended object to a location of your choice, than watch it fly off randomly and break on something. Three?"

//Only three, and only because it has to be more than two eventually//

"I appreciate your confidence, my love." Bob selected three spheres of highly visible coloration.

They went for it again; Bob ended up increasing his hand-eye coordination substantially, but he did it via having to chase little crystal spheres across the carpet and get them back into his hands in the starting position. Nothing was successfully juggled that afternoon, but the work in using Harry's body to get around a little more precisely than basic walking was beneficial anyway.

* * *

"Very good," Megare purred. "That is very good…hold that…ah!" 

Bob grunted as he and Harry hit the floor mat like a ton of bricks. If the floors had had a hollow space beneath, that would have been a very loud whump, Bob thought, waiting for the aftershock to die down. The things one forgot in a few centuries...he wished he at least had Harry's reflexes back.

//Very loud// Harry agreed.

"What happened?" Megare asked, kneeling next to him and examining him quickly.

"A back muscle spasmed," Bob said. "I think we should start with some simpler asanas."

"Perhaps to start with mudras," Megare sighed. "You will need hands to their best, after all. Very important. Get less hurt. Spells will work."

"I don't think a mudra ever made anyone fall over by itself, true," Bob said, struggling back to a sitting position. "And incorrect direct dactylation would be disastrous…I never realized just how bloody long Harry is."

Megare smiled. "He is tall, but not that tall. I have known many taller men. And you are not short. Even one inch more, it feeling very long to you, not your body."

"True," Bob sighed.

Megare helped him set up, then tried to help him get into lotus, which for Harry's body was not a strain; then she had to kind of put him into lotus when it became apparent that Bob's level of control was putting him in danger of kicking himself in the crotch with his heel. She bent his legs manually and moved them until his feet were tucked up properly on his thighs.

//You're not gonna spring either of my adductors, are you//

"Only if you distract me while I'm sitting like this. Very well, milady; the asanas of the hands. Where shall we start?"

Harry gave the impression of sighing, but said nothing.


	14. Chapter 14

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the characters and I don't own this story.

**_LOUD AND CLEAR! I DO NOT, HAVE NOT AND WILL NOT EVER OWN THIS STORY!_**

**This story is the property of Tang Guangzhen who was kind enough to give me permission to post this here. Any flames about that will be used to fry your ass.**

**Thank You**

* * *

Oh, my. 

Harry was no more than nine, sitting on a timber in the sand, with a skull perched on his knees that no longer existed outside the head Bob currently occupied. The child was frowning at it. It was still night--one of these days, he needed to fall asleep before Harry and see what happened to their surroundings. He usually left the backgrounds alone. As far as he knew, Harry had never even seen a beach like this one in reality. Chicago's lake didn't provide any such. And Bob hadn't provided the beach outside Harry's dreaming bedroom; it had simply appeared. Where had Harry gotten an image that made such an impression on him?

He approached Harry, walking along the tide's edge where the boy could see him. If he recognized Bob at any level, their last experience was recent enough that the emotional impression should make more difference than event memory.

Harry noticed him, and froze, eyes riveted. Fortunately, Bob was nearly close enough for conversation. He smiled, and called "Hello, Harry."

Harry just watched as he approached, with a tenseness that made Bob stop a couple of bodylengths away.

Harry stared at him another moment, then held his hand out, fingers straight, palm down. Bob took the last few steps forward and took it, squeezing very gently. "What have you got there?" he asked.

"It's a skull," Harry said. "I've seen them. It's…funny-looking. "

"Yes, it is. Most skulls don't look like that."

Harry looked up. "Who are you? The…it goes away, when you come."

Bob looked away, biting his lip, wondering if he should ask his questions. He had no real desire to make Harry describe "it"; his fearful expression and posture were enough.

Harry had been an incredibly poised eleven-year old, especially considering his history; even a bit standoffish. Bob had learned how affectionate Harry's parents had been with him, and he imagined Harry felt that being emotionally outgoing or demonstrative had felt like betrayal of that, as much as saying that he could give and receive that sort of love with anyone. It would have helped a great deal, of course, if he'd had a handier pool of people, ones more interested than Justin and more capable than Bob.

This dreaming Harry, though, was not like that. This was the Harry that would have clung and cried, if there had been anyone to care; but there was another component to this emphatically different dream-child, one that was becoming increasingly obvious in the waking world, and Bob didn't care for it even slightly.

Best not to complicate things now. "I'm Bob. I'm here to keep it away."

Harry stared a moment again; then he nodded. "Yeah," he said. He scooted nearer to Bob, letting go of his hand so he could maneuver into his side. Bob put the arm in question around him, and Harry went back to staring at the skull.

"What do you think it's for?" Harry finally asked.

Bob was stroking his hair and back lightly. "I think it's old. I don't think anyone uses it for anything much any more."

"It seems important. Like you."

"It was important once, I'm sure; very important, in fact. I can see how it would figure very largely to you--" tone it down. This child was younger than the youngest one he remembered, who handled large concepts well; neither was this one in the best shape right now to deal with such things, even age aside. "But it's--"

"It's important, and I made it go away. It's important. "

Gods, the way Harry's psyche gave him back his experiences in dreams! Bob could've cried.

"You didn't make it go away, and the important part about it? That didn't go away. The skull went away by itself, and it didn't take anything you'd miss with it. I promise you that."

Harry looked up at him. It was strange; the larger eyes in his head, the larger head in proportion to his body--it was a fairly slight change when one considered how children grew, and he'd evidently been tall and lanky for his age at nine, or however old this was exactly, as well as at the age Bob met him. It was so close to what he remembered, but frailer, for several reasons. Harry said "But I…" his eyes teared just slightly, like they still did when he was unhappy but nowhere near crying. Bob couldn't be certain the last didn't apply here, though.

Abruptly Harry turned away and wrapped the skull in his arms, dropping forward to rest his cheek on it. "I miss it," he said, almost inaudibly. "I've missed it for a long time; I want it to come back…but it won't, because I made it go away."

Gods, of course. Harry wasn't talking about the actual disappearance of the skull. He missed the reassurance its presence had given him, to the point of taking the bloody thing to bed with him, which Bob had actually been a little worried about on finding out--partly for the integrity of both the skull and of Harry, if Justin caught him at this; and a bit, well, put off. He wouldn't be caught dead--or something--in the same sheets with human remains, personally, occasional necromancy in his professional oeuvre or not.

Harry'd gotten older and had to stop behaving that way with it, of course, quitting taking it to bed to hug--lacking a stuffed toy or another human--only being one manifestation of that. Perhaps that was why he felt he'd "made it go away".

Bob remembered now how badly Harry had reacted, even beyond Bob's confusion and worry, when the skull vanished--evaporated, or whatever it had done exactly. Gods, what a mess. Damn Justin Morningway and damn him again for good measure. Bob was fairly sure precision wasn't that important, here; if he wanted to explore this aspect of Harry's psychological being--whichever aspect, or aspects, it turned out to be--he should speak with the grown and awake Harry in the morning. This was only a confused child.

"Come here, my darling." He rearranged them so that the skull wasn't out of Harry's reach, but so Harry was mostly in Bob's lap. Harry was a little tall, but once he realized that Bob was holding him tightly, rubbing his back, and that this was a representative of some family of hug, he let his head drop to rest on Bob's shoulder, sliding an arm down and around him.

Bob murmured "Yes, hang on tight, that's right. You don't need the skull any more; you have me, now. I keep it all away, remember? That's what I'm here for; to stay with you, and keep you safe."

A silent moment, and then "Really?"

"You remembered that yourself, didn't you? I swear, there is no other purpose in my being here now. I am entirely at your disposal, my darling."

He held Harry, and rocked him a bit; they chatted, sparsely and aimlessly. Harry hung on tight; and all the time he dreamed, Bob kept him there, with him, didn't let him fade into a different dream--bound to be just as uncomfortable as anything he'd needed rescuing from in the past, if not worse.

"I'm sleepy," Harry finally yawned.

"Sleep, then, sweetheart," Bob whispered, and Harry, now on the soft blanket on the sand with most of the top half of him piled in Bob's lap and arms, faded to a dreamless level.

"I'll be there right behind you," Bob assured them both.

* * *

"No. Megare made us promise."

//I'm tired of showering with a bodyguard. We can do this//

"It's I who'll have to do it, which I think is a large part of your feeling that this should be tried at all."

//I'll coach you. I've been washing this body for a long time//

"You'll murder us both if your instructions are anything like what they've been the past week. Do you know how many people accidentally kill themselves in tubs and showers every year? And they, largely, have more experience with the bodies they're in."

//Speaking of which, Megare is going to start giving us tub baths if we don't start showering on our own. She gets the shit beat out of her by elbows, knees, feet and occasionally my face, which can't really take getting smacked into another person's bones for too long without wearing the scars for the rest of its life, natural or otherwise//

"I don't know why she doesn't just stand outside the shower and catch us from a distance, but if I asked her to--"

//She wouldn't, because she knows I'd be totally humiliated. Washing your butt-naked person with an audience is a lot different from washing it with company. She joins us, gets naked and wet along with us, and helps scrub so that I won't curl up and die//

"But tub baths wouldn't bother you?"

//That's not an audience, that's participating. And Megare is little. She'd have to join us there, too, to reach anything on me//

"Why is it so different?"

//I dunno, shaddup, it just is//

"Harry…" Bob sighed. "If I hurt…us…in there, well--healing us would be problematic right now, and so it'll take that much longer to get us to where we can do this--share your body--well enough to leave here and deal with…whomever we need to deal with, safely. It's already taking longer than I like. I hadn't anticipated…even days of this, let alone a couple of weeks so far."

//Do you think I'm enjoying this//

"Of course not. And I can't delay letting you have at least some control for much longer, or you'll have to relearn your own body. Assuming--" Bob paused.

//Assuming I don't totally wack out. I can remember my dreams, you know; even though you don't bring it up. And I already know that you're worried. It's hard to miss in here//

"Then you know why I don't like risking this," Bob said quietly. "I want…I think we need to do everything we can to speed up the process. Tell me this--having no control and no sensation for so long is--the stress of it is terrible after a while. Why don't you want to work on that?"

//Because you have to be able to control my body completely in case anything happens to me. If either of us make it, it'll probably be you. If something takes me out, you'll have to save us both//

"Harry…"

//Bob, just don't. This is self-preservation as much as wanting not to leave you helpless if I'm out of the game for however long. We can at least do this shower thing//

"Harry, we can't. I know, because you aren't doing this, I am. I wouldn't be able to do it without dropping things and falling continually; without Megare, I can't even stand up in a soapy, wet environment. "

A humming quiet from the back of his mind for a while, and then Harry said //All right. We'll take the conservative view of what would speed things up and avoid the accidents that would slow us down. But we can't leave here if you can't do this, it shows up too many other things you won't be able to do//

"I know that, my darling," Bob sighed, very softly. "I'll call Megare."

//She's already on her way; sick com's still on//

"And she's probably moving under a full head of steam."

"Harry! Idiot!"

//Yeah, there's steam happening// Harry muttered.

Megare stopped in the doorway, looking dangerous. "Not to kill yourselves in my house, please!"

//Tell her it was my idea and you wouldn't go for it//

"We won't, milady. Harry wishes you to know that it was his idea and that I argued against it."

"Harry, you say anything stupid again--"

//Tell her I won't//

"He won't, he says," Bob relayed, worrying at the sense of resignation he felt, which was entirely too depressingly powerful to be his own--or not all his own.

* * *

In bed that night, Megare a somnolent lump next to them--Harry and Bob had finally mastered going to sleep together, at least; Megare no longer had to out them down like a kid--Bob whispered "She's starting to wonder."

//I've been wondering for a while//

"Gods know what it would do to you if I simply took over the way an invading spirit does!"

//It's your being so damn careful of me that's making this take so long, and take so much out of us both. You could push it a little//

"I won't push it at all. I will leave as much room as possible for your presence on this neuronal network. It's coming more slowly, but it's coming."

//Even Megare is wondering, you just said yourself, why you don't//

"No. I refuse to argue about it."

A feeling of exasperation and tiredness. //I'm not trying to argue with you//

"I've never even considered taking over another person's body entirely, Harry. I will not take a chance on hurting you if I prove inept. An invading spirit doesn't care what happens to the original owner of the body; it means to kill that person anyway, usually, or subsume them in some way. Do you think I could do anything that might--"

//No// Harry was quiet for a while after that; a cloud of depression drifted past and dissipated. Bob closed his eyes tight in effort not to apologize yet again. He carried a constant air of feeing sorry, for exactly what he wasn't sure, but he and Harry were both starting to hate it a whole lot.

"I'm not trying to argue with you, either, my darling," Bob sighed. "Half the time, I'm on your side of our arguments when we're not actually having them, and the other half…I don't know what would be the safest, fastest thing to do. But you can't stand this for much longer, and I can't stand doing it to you."

//Megare's way? With Cruachan's help// Trepidation shuddered through him, mostly Harry's, a bit of his own.

"There's one more thing we can try," Bob said. "If it works, we'll continue a while longer. If there's any serious problem…"

//Try what//

"Megare's lab, in the morning, and we'll see what, exactly," Bob said. "We should sleep now. It was a very long day today."

//And they're not gettin' any shorter// Harry concurred.

* * *

"Are you sure?" Megare said. "Can walk. Does not mean can work magic."

"I can work magic, my dear; I've been doing it off and on for a while. Harry is abetting me. Very small magics--I just want to give it a try with something more substantial, perhaps…something more signature. Not referring to necromancy, of course. Despite the fact that I can handle it, it was never my specialty, nor my intention to become…as enmired as I did."

"I trust you, Hrothbert," Megare said, "not is what problem. Scrape you off floor, that is problem."

"Lt. Murphy uses a sharp paint removing tool to get Harry detached from whatever he's been flattened against," Bob offered.

//Don't be a prick to Megare//

"I am joking with Megare, Harry."

//To Megare, that's not funny//

"I stay? Go?" She threw her hands in the air.

"Stay if you wish, Megare, and keep watch over your lab," Bob said, smiling a little. "Just…please don't startle me at the wrong time."

"I know that much." She went to a four-legged stool in a corner, pulled it out a bit, and sat.

"Of course." Bob turned back to the empty work area in the middle of the room--Megare' s lab was not only neat and well-stocked, it was substantially larger than Harry's. "So, my darling. What's it to be?"

//Why are you asking me? This is your spell//

"I'm delaying, I suppose. I'm as nervous about this as I was about eating and…um, everything else."

//Oh for pete's sake, Megare knows we're, um//

"Yes, see what I mean? Are we really? Now?"

//We'd better deal with issues concerning our sex life later. Spell, lemme think…in your grimoire, there was a//

"The grimoire you burned?"

//Not your first grimoire, one of your other grimoires. There was this beautiful Substitution Transformation; and I think the example was a piece of granite, about fifty grains, and a lilac plant//

"We'd better pick something besides the lilac plant. I don't think they grow in the Himalayas."

"Granite," Megare said, pointing at a file cabinet with lists down the front, full of filed, dated, and otherwise location/time indexed rocks of many sizes. She went to a bin in a plastic bin table, opened it, and thrust her hand in; the seeds swam about around her hand, and stopped. She pulled out a seed, then walked around obtaining items, and in a few seconds was holding a baby lilac bush, in a cup of dirt, out to them. "Fifty grains weight. Including roots."

"Thank you, milady. Harry likes it better, of course, when the Substitution seems to come from nowhere, but this will reveal our ability to perform the spell or not just as nicely." He took the cup of green and the rock to a white-painted worktable under its own silver-shade- backed light.

"Um…Harry, my darling--were that file cabinet's contents labeled before?"

A humming at the back of his head, and then//I don't think so. Nothing else in here is labeled but the…well, they were labeled//

The little boxes of the huge wooden drawer cabinet that held Megare's medicinal herbs were empty of label, their little brass rectangles pristine.

//But she knew we were coming in here for--hold it. Just now? You hadn't said anything about the granite and stuff//

"I've suspected Megare could hear you to some degree all this time. I'll explain later. And let's back-burner the labels as well, with…the other thing."

//Right. For now…Substitution Transformation//

"Here we go--"

"Wait," Megare said, her voice tired; she seemed to have come to some sort of conclusion. "I will contain." She got up and came to the other side of the table.

//Thank her for the vote of confidence//

"Now, it's a reasonable precaution. This is her lab."

//Yeah, good point//

"All right; start again. And…"

* * *

When he came to, it was to hear unearthly shrieking and see Megare planted in the middle of the lab like a tiny Rock of Gibraltar, arms extended, force crackling from them to surround the writhing light that hung blindingly in the middle of the room.

"Gods above," Bob breathed, and started to get up--

//NO//

--and was yanked back to the floor by a full-body spasm that was hard enough to hurt. It was over in an eyeblink, but debilitating even after.

//We did this--don't try, don't try to help// Harry screamed into his mind. //We'll just do something worse//

His first inclination--to scoff--was heartily dumped on by the realization that he was not who he'd been before--who he'd always been--like this; Harry had been wrong about that. He had his remembered power. Harry had his own. Together, that power was tremendous. But they had no control.

The writhing light--they could see immediately that it was a demogorgon, which was bad enough, but how had the Substitution Transformation produced that? Or had they been so out of true they'd done an entirely different sort of spell?

"Look, Harry," Bob whispered, turning his eyes, and felt Harry coming to the same realization; distracted by Megare's efforts to control the demogorgon, he hadn't immediately noticed that the entire row of lab tables that stood halfway to the middle of the room was gone.

//That's where the mass came from// Harry whispered in his mind, with a feeling of such tension he was almost impossible to understand. //And we did that just accidentally. Doing a little spell like that one. If we'd tried anything heavier-duty… oh, shit//

"Indeed. The power present in us must be phenomenal; I'm surprised it hasn't made itself known before now."

//Both of us--it's not too much for both of us// Harry figured. //Didn't overwhelm us, didn't overcharge us. We had no idea, and it could've been…fuck, I can't even imagine how much worse it coulda been, us trying this//

The light was now a sphere about the size of a human head. It shrank, still writhing, still shrieking in the voice of a demogorgon. They watched, frozen, from the floor as the sphere finally shrunk to nothing, and popped out of their spacetime with a rumble and, all Gods witness, a minor tremor from the floor that rocked the room and probably the whole house a bit.

"Are you unhurt?" Cruachan said, making Bob jump again, which didn't feel good after what Harry had done to stop them from getting up and making an even bigger disaster of things.

"I'm well enough. Go to Megare."

Megare was slumping to the floor, not power-exhausted so much as stressed out and exasperated. Cruachan's shifting appeared next to her, and then she was leaning against the shifting air, which was not a thing they'd ever seen before with Cruachan. They watched, startled, for a moment, before assessing the damage to their person and trying to get up again.

They made it this time, but it took some pauses to grunt and wince. An incredible amount of power had just been siphoned through them; it wasn't surprising they were feeling it. Bob took them over to Megare and Cruachan and went to one knee, examining her only with his eyes. "Harry and I cannot express…bloody hell, I give up. We're verging on suicidally regretful."

"Mm," Megare said, eyeballing them. "I bet. So, you ready now? Try my way? Had long enough?"

"Yes," Bob said submissively, knowing Harry would agree, too--the words "damn straight" wafted around his thoughts for no apparent reason, and he almost smiled. "We will try your way, milady. You and Cruachan can do what you need to do. I don't know--we might learn to control this body together in time, but we've taken far too much time trying already. We don't know enough to stay here indefinitely--for all we know there is a time limit, one of the things we have to try not to think about--never mind that. The point is that motion is one thing, but we'll never learn to control such power like this, with our reflexes fighting each other and Harry's body unschooled in my automatic commands. Fifty grains of lilac into a demogorgon? Bloody hell."

"Good, then. We will do when I feel…"

"…better. When you feel better."

"Yes. Better. Not dead. I do not do dead good like you. Need to be better…" she was about half-fainting with shock--powerful as she was, suddenly having to contain a demogorgon had probably jerked the magic halfway out of her.

"Can you carry her safely, Cruachan?" Bob said softly.

"I can. I will take her to her bed."

"We all appreciate that. Thank you."

Cruachan and Megare were suddenly not there--no, they were there; Cruachan's shifting was just visible--he had only taken them into a spatial turning where he could manipulate her mass and energy. Then the shifting in the air vanished silently.

//We're dumbfucks//

"That we are, my darling. I don't know if we'll ever be able to look Megare in the face again. It shouldn't have taken this to make us face the inevitable. It's really rather sad; I enjoyed believing I was wiser than this. Ah, well."

//I'd say something to make you feel better, but I'm thinkin' the same stuff, here, pretty much//

"I'm not surprised. We'd best go see to Megare, if we can do so without breaking any more of her possessions."

//I'm glad it's going to be you, technically, who has to face her, though it won't be much fun from in here//

"Nor for me." He rose and started for the door, walking unsteadily, carefully, and slowly.


	15. Chapter 15

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the characters and I don't own this story.

**_LOUD AND CLEAR! I DO NOT, HAVE NOT AND WILL NOT EVER OWN THIS STORY!_**

**This story is the property of Tang Guangzhen who was kind enough to give me permission to post this here. Any flames about that will be used to fry your ass.**

**Thank You**

* * *

He was born unconscious; by the time he woke completely, enough to open his eyes and move, he knew that he had been born, and why, his memories meshing--what he needed landing square in his hands, while what he didn't stayed quietly in his preconscious, waiting for its cue. 

It wasn't that different from Harry's normal experiences, though Bob might have found it a bit pedestrian compared to his own day-to-day mental functioning. They would know later, dreaming, while the man who'd just been born was in the aether, temporarily nonexistent but revivable, as anyone in a coma or deep sleep was. He wasn't alarmed by the thought.

He opened his eyes, blinking a bit. Megare, her hair up and her expression fixed to blankness in her determination, gazed down at him. A shifting in the air and the occasional glimmer of red indicated Cruachan's presence behind her.

"Harry?" she asked softly. And then, when he didn't answer immediately, she whispered "Bob?" He could see her chest rising and falling in deliberate control of her breaths.

"No, neither exactly," he said. "But I think I'm all right." He lifted a hand and she took it, helped him sit when he began struggling to do so.

"You are Harry Dresden and Hrothbert of Bainbridge," Cruachan boomed. "You are aware of this?"

"Yes, quite aware," he said quietly, with a little smile. "I'm…quite aware of that. It's…interesting, what of them recombined to create me. Not all of them did, but still…I can remember…I think I can remember everything they can, if I work at it."

"Do you have a name?" Cruachan wanted to know.

He shook his head, rubbing his eyes with his other hand, and smiled again. "I was only just born," he admonished the imp, with no heat in the words. "Give me a few minutes."

"So that is how, how it works," Megare whispered. She had to be semi-petrified with worry and poised on the verge of terrific guilt. What Harry had said--"We end up what? Catatonic? Schizophrenic?"--or something like that, had probably been haunting her. This spell had never been tried; it was an invention of Megare's, with input from Cruachan, and would have been impossible without both her fantastic power and Cruachan's influence in the ordering of the concepts in question--though Megare seemed not to be a stranger to them; her school was only a bit different from Cruachan's. Megare sat on the bed next to him. "You are…I thought it was, would be, more like…like them both, but you are not Harry and Bob. You are…like recombining, like you say. You know."

"Recombining…DNA?"

"Yes, like DNA, analogy, you see. A child is not either of its parents. It shows some of them, be like them in some ways, but it is a whole new…person," she whispered, her eyes focused in the middle distance. "Unlike either of them in many, many important ways…" The magnitude of what she'd done was giving her a frisson, quite obviously. "Is why they call it 'recombine'. You end up with someone else, who is things, has things, neither parent…neither parent does."

To spare her, give her a few minutes to think, he addressed himself to Cruachan, who would not be freaked--he seemed unfreakable. He'd only be delighted by the fascinating details of this spell's operation. "So, what do you think of that, buddy? Can you explain it in short words for me?"

"You have Bob and Harry's memories?"

"I have access to them, yes, but I'm not being flooded with the information; it's very like anyone else. If I want to remember anything in particular, there has to be an associational cue. Otherwise the information waits in my preconscious, as near as I can tell."

"Ah. Very good, it's an excellent sign for your proper functioning. Use was made of the principles I am familiar with, of moving through different spaces. As one might cast a spell to step through a portal and emerge miles away, so the neuronal activity in your brain and body have been adjusted to allow synaptic activity that would not be possible without the aid of tiny intervals of such space."

"I have tiny tesseracts in my brain?" he asked, and smiled at the thought.

"Popular misuse of word," Megare said, getting up to sort of wander around the room, tensely hidden turmoil apparent in her posture and restless movement, her gaze fixed in the middle distance. "But what you mean, yes. You are…now one. One, as I suppose--would be, would have been, if we did not…do this way, simply…joined you. But the shifting of space…"

"It is part of the connections, the synaptic path joinings," Cruachan said. "As you know, I see planes and plains that you do not. It appears that you exist, as you would have existed if we had permanently joined Bob and Harry into one being. But the use of extraspatial dimensions in the brainpaths and activity--it keeps them, in this space, separate--or, more accurately, separable--in these three dimensions that you percieve."

He nodded. "Very clever. Remove the signals that are carried through a spatial-shifting via stopping that aspect, fixing my brain activity back into one space--this one--and I don't exist; Bob and Harry do." He frowned, in thought, not displeasure, as he added "When I sleep, that will happen."

"How do you know?" Megare whispered. "I do not know that."

"I'm not sure, but I'm betting that I'm going to have some pretty accurate instincts."

"You are most likely correct. Harry's instincts were--are--trustworthy, to hear those who know him talk of it. But also--it is impossible to say what characteristics and knowledge will come to the fore in your…personality's phenotype, if you will. Their knowledge will blend in you such that you may not be able to find a memory, of either of them, that will explain why you know what you do. It may be something that, together, if they could communicate perfectly, they would see and realize--could they function safely as a single mind for any length of time."

He pulled his knees up and crossed his arms on them, drumming the fingers of one hand on the opposite arm. "Huh."

Megare said haltingly "If you are another person. Another real person…" she trailed off, looking disturbed and pensive.

A smile tugged at his lips. "'Neither Bob, nor Harry be'. I suppose I'm their twisted love child."

Megare got a look on her face that said she was partly amused and partly appalled, but trusty Cruachan only came right back with "That is a fair analogy, though since their experience, their learned behavior and the ouevre of their memories, other things not normally transmitted to children--is not only available to you, but an integral part of you--it is more complicated."

"Yes, complicated," he sighed. His eyes dropped to the bedspread, and he laughed a little, not sure why. "Well. Happy birthday to me." He could feel his eyes tearing a tiny bit, just like Harry's did when he was upset. Only reasonable; the body was Harry's. He could, though, feel things related to the physical--reflexes, automatic gestures--almost pulling at him, that had to be coming from Bob as well as Harry. He blinked as his attention to the subject brought up memories--one was a similar impression, over and over; something Bob did frequently enough to ingrain it as trained-in muscle memory. He could almost feel braided wire around a wood-sheathed full tang, squeezed in palm and fingers, the hilt of a sword in his hand--the automatic adjustments of posture, keeping his weight balanced, forward on the balls of his feet, as he thrust and parried.

"I think I could do that," he whispered. "It's not Bob's body, but…I think I could do that, too."

"I beg your pardon?" Cruachan asked.

"I was just…remembering some…well. Bob was quite the swordsman, and I…" he slowly turned, planting one bare foot on the carpet, then the other. "I think I can…" he stood slowly and walked a couple of steps--no problem--took a deep breath, and dropped into a prepared stance, his right arm extended out, holding a phantom sword; his left leg was back, balancing him lightly, body turned to the sword-holding right side side to present the smallest target, left arm up behind for balance. He lunged forward, and hopped back from an imaginary opponent's blade.

Megare smiled for the first time. "I know Harry cannot do that. This…the way you are…"

"Translation is occuring that did not happen, while your configuration was that of two people in one brain," Cruachan pondered. "Bob's reflexes are tempered by Harry's. They are working together now--but I would be careful. Your nerves may be sending all the appropriate signals, though they are not used to them yet; but the correct muscles themselves have not been worked, or, as it were, properly programmed."

"So I'll be sore, until they get in shape."

"Most likely," Cruachan confirmed. "And you will frustrate yourself with clumsiness. My family were always getting injured and losing their fighting edge during convalescence. It can be a disquieting thing."

He stretched and looked around. He knew it wasn't quite like being born; it couldn't be. He already knew…well, everything Bob and Harry both did, if he thought about it. As Cruachan said, his personality would show characteristics of both of them, plus those that were uniquely his, but the memories…he might have to hunt for some of it if it were something Bob or Harry would have had to hunt for, but it was all there.

"And that's why Bob didn't want to try it," he sighed.

"Excuse me?" Megare said.

"This, this…extraspatial-circuit blending. They're both going to know everything the other did. They'll remember everything I've experienced, including the other's memories--just like I do with them. There are things Bob doesn't want Harry to know for his own safety. You know what? I don't know why Bob isn't a blithering wreck by now. If Harry weren't worth loving I'd think Bob was an idiot for loving a man who who might easily be killed going out for a paper. Harry may be the unluckiest bastard in the world when it comes to getting the sap knocked out of him."

Megare smiled again. "But the reasons--it does it does him nothing but credit, no? He is beautiful creature."

He smiled, eyes closing, as a few memories wandered past his eyelids, through his multi-dimensional mind. "Yes. He's beautiful, and I wish he'd believe it. Speaking for Harry, Bob, and the twisted love child, I hope he eventually does. And I hope he has children someday, however he chooses to do it. He'd make a wonderful father."

She blinked, then smiled again a little. "That is nice to say."

"It's true. Harry is terrified of the idea, having so little to call on in that area in the way of decent experience or role models--at least, anything that's not connected to extreme trauma of some kind--and Bob has never thought of it. Now that I have, he will, and he'll agree with me. But…" he shrugged. "Maybe I'm in a unique position to appreciate certain things about them both."

"Oh, you have unique position, no question," Megare said, eyes big, refocusing on the distance again for a moment. "Very unique."

"Um, I wonder if you'd do me a favor, milady," he said, adding the last with a shy smile, reaching out to take her hand and brush his lips lightly over her knuckles.

She smiled. "I will do anything I can. I am…your mother, or more I am your midwife. You may appeal to me as of right, but I would give you anything you asked for in my power, even if not."

"Thank you. It's nice to have family the first time I open my eyes and speak," he murmured toward the floor. Then he added, perhaps to lighten the mood, "You're speaking pretty clearly."

"You are…not as difficult to hear," she not-explained, glancing away. "I do not know why."

"Maybe we'll find out. In any case, what I'd like is for you to give me a name. As you say, there's no one more appropriate than you to do it."

"Yes, a name. What sort of name do you want? A long name, a wizard name? I can think of many that would honor both Bob and Harry."

He nodded, then pondered; finally he said "No. I'm not either of them, though I come from them, though they…compose me, I'm…an emergent property, in a way. Nothing planned, something outside them. I need a name for me."

"Yes. That is proper. And practical, come to think. If you are not named separately--when you leave here, it would make it easier for you to be tracked and found. Well…" she thought. "You may need support from your name. I name you Eryl. It means place of lookout. Vigilance is in it."

He nodded. "Cymric. It's a beautiful name, Megare. Eryl it is." He felt an odd sensation, like a blanket settling over him, warm and steadying.

"Then you will want a use-name," Cruachan warned. "Something to tell those whom you'd rather, for whatever reason, didn't learn your name immediately." Names were even more powerful in the magic systems Cruachan was familiar with than in most.

"True. You are both welcome to call me Eryl, of course. You delivered me, after all." He smiled, and he'd never realized why Harry's smile sometimes diffused touchy situations--it came from the soul; his emotion was real and deep and showed in that smile, he knew. Harry was a sweet man. He hoped desperately that this wasn't all going to prove too much for him.

"You may choose that yourself, but if nothing better comes along…Tomos, or perhaps Thomas, the same name in English?" Megare suggested.

"Tomos: Cymric for "twin". He grinned at the appropriateness of it, his twinned being. "And that, or Thomas, will do well enough for a use-name. I'll come up with others for paperwork as necessary. So, how do I sound? My voice, I mean."

"You sound… cosmopolitan. An American who spends much time in the Isles and on the continent." Megare smiled. "Your speech, it is… smooth and warm. Easy, as Harry's voice is not…but without Bob's formality. That and…and the way you move…" she was noticing this most likely because Eryl was now practicing a ballroom dance step Hrothbert had known centuries ago, with a phantom partner. He would probably suddenly just do things like that, with a head full of untested memories. "You are graceful, like Bob, but--not quite the same, with Harry's reach, and length, and longer back."

"You wear the body well," Cruachan offered. "In my humble opinion, of course."

Eryl stopped dancing, did a step over again to make sure he'd gotten it right, and looked up. "I feel well. I don't see any reason we can't start on some parameter-establishment. It'll give me an idea of what I'll be dealing with, at least from my end of things."

"Of course," Megare said quickly, and moved forward. "I think we assume you can eat normally, both Harry and Bob could do so. Such basics have already been established."

"So we should see if I can move as they did, in general, and, more importantly, cast as they did, with the available power not only a matter of addition, but of…as someone said, emergent properties. Exponentially greater, but under a single control."

"Yes; we must know who you are, and what you have to work with. You will be safe in the sense of your both--all--being bound to a living body, when you leave here, no matter how much of this was influence of mine, or things you did while you were here, or whether it would have happened anyway, from your dreaming. But you must find your strengths and limits, strong in the wizard gift as you are."

"You shall be my teacher, milady," Eryl said, with a short bow in her direction. "You and our knowledgable friend."

"Not teacher. Unless we teach each other. But your safeguard, and coach; Cruachan helps, too."

"I would be delighted." The imp was doing his bouncing in place thing, which sometimes made you have to look away before you got airsick.

"Well. Take me for a walk, my friend," Eryl said, with a smile for Cruachan. His eyes were tearing again; he wasn't sure why, but he knew they could see it. It didn't occur to him to try to hide it from them.

Not from the people who'd brought him into the world.

* * *

Megare disappeared during the slow walk they made about the place, examining all the interesting things that Bob might have been fascinated by, though finding things in them that Bob wouldn't have noticed, while Eryl came to know how automatic his reflexes were, whether Bob's or Harry's. They weren't Bob's or Harry's, was the point he kept bumping into during his investigations--they were his. They functioned smoothly, and his mind was wrapped in no confusion of images, nor thoughts warring--they meshed, they discarded the currently inapplicable, and the essential floated to the top in almost negative time. They produced their own paths of thought, came to their own conclusions. Memories swirled together in patterns, easily, in his head--sometimes jarring, but never more than one might be jarred by sudden memories normally; it was absorbing, interesting, and made one feel like going somewhere secluded just to think for awhile; but it wasn't frighteningly different from the same sorts of feelings people usually had in such circumstances, even if it was happening for different reasons.

He was leaning against the not-window in the big sitting room, the central room of the house, almost as large as the library. In Greece, the sun was setting off to the right, and the sky, sea and land throbbed with a glowing palette of deep, rich colors. He was there a long time, leaning a shoulder against the windowframe, long arms in less evidence by the easily clasped hands behind his back; a relaxed posture, still and calm--but ready to move at any moment.

"Are you hungry yet?" Megare had come up next to him.

He put an arm around her, drawing her close. "I think I am, now that you mention it," he said, still gazing, enraptured, out toward the lush richnesses of shade, texture and color visible through the window. "I think I am. Would it be possible to procure one of those meal-worthy snack trays you're so fond of?"

"I can--" there was a whirlwind of movement, this one just disturbing the air enough to feel a tiny breeze, and such a tray--a large one--appeared on a low table near the window, on top of several cloth mats thrown down almost too fast to see, to protect the polished wood.

Eryl laughed softly, in genuine delight. "You are a master, Cruachan. I could never serve a laden tray so smoothly."

"It is not much effort for me, you realize," Cruachan reminded him, taking up a spot on the other side of the low, round table.

"I guess that makes me feel better," Eryl said, sitting down with Megare, taking a little plate from the stack with the napkins. Most of the comestibles were finger food, but if you wanted to construct something a little more elaborate, one needed one's own plate to do it on.

Megare poured wine for everyone, pausing before filling Eryl's glass; he cocked an eyebrow at her, and she smiled, and poured.

After they'd been chowing for a bit, he patted his mouth with his napkin and said gently "So, would you care to talk about your misgivings? You've been reserved ever since Bob and Harry started trying to get comfortable enough in Harry's body to function properly in it."

"I am concerned," she said, shaking her head and waving it away. "I am always concerned. I care for them, I am nervous."

"I hope you don't think less of me, in your fear for them."

"No, no…you are nice person. I can tell." She sighed. "I miss them, though, not because they have been gone so long, but because I do not know when, or even how, I see them again, yes?"

"I understand," he said quietly. "And they will understand, too, when they remember this."

"I do not wish you harm," she said, looking and sounding as upset as he'd ever seen her. "It is only that I wish no harm to them either. No harm--to harm none, anyone. And I do not see how…"

"We'll find a way. I would never give up on them--because I don't believe Harry and Bob would abandon me; and I know them better than anyone else ever has. That's why I don't mind the idea of going to sleep, letting them…be themselves, in the levels of my brain, of my mind, that aren't affected by this joining. I won't exist during that time, really, but nobody does when all meaningful cerebral activity has stopped, and that stops for everyone, at certain stages of sleep. If your own patterns can be switched back on, if the hardware and circuit fluid is still available on standby--if you can be revived, you aren't dead. Just…turned off for a bit. It's even a necessary part of human functioning, so that operations requiring no interference from the head office can take place, in maintenance and repair in the body. Technically, I suppose, it's death, to the individual in question, because their cortical brain pattern doesn't exist for that time. But it's your pattern that matters--not the synapses themselves, not the connecting circuits--but the specific patterns of those connecting circuits, that make you…you. Harry's brain won't undergo any strain. Not now that I'm here, at least."

"I believe you--I believe you, for I have done this," Megare said, and swallowed a gulp of wine. "I must believe you, or I have done a thing that…."

"Megare." Eryl stroked her shoulders. "We, or the potential for us, are all here. I'm only using part of what's available; the same with them. It'll be all right, I swear. Cross my heart. Needle in my eye and all that disgusting kid swearing stuff," he finished, and she was chuckling, and Eryl felt like picking her up in his arms and rocking her. Not that she'd have tolerated that quite yet. She hardly knew him, despite having delivered him. All she knew was that he knew her.

"I will remember," she said firmly, and started making another little sandwich, involving caviar and some other things Eryl had mixed feelings about. He reached for the spoon when she was done. "Bob likes this stuff. Harry would have a gagging festival. I guess it's up to me to find out if I like it."


	16. Chapter 16

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the characters and I don't own this story.

**_LOUD AND CLEAR! I DO NOT, HAVE NOT AND WILL NOT EVER OWN THIS STORY!_**

**This story is the property of Tang Guangzhen who was kind enough to give me permission to post this here. Any flames about that will be used to fry your ass.**

**Thank You**

* * *

Harry was sitting on the beach again, under the night sky. He was juggling little gold werelights, and the set of his shoulders gave the lie that his casual demeanor was questionable, at least. He was wearing the soft, shapeless, colorless clothing he was comfortable in, and his old comfortable boots.

Bob came up and sat on the log next to him; he wore a loose lawn shirt tucked into tight black trousers, a sword belted at his waist, and boots of worn black leather that hugged his feet to above the ankles, then widened enough to cuff.

"Hello, my darling," he murmured, as the werelights scattered across the sand and Harry threw an arm around Bob's waist and one around his shoulders, pulling him in close, tight, tighter, burying his face in Bob's neck.

Bob stroked Harry's back, rocking him gently. "Shhh, shhh…it's all right..."

"That's why," Harry gulped, holding back sobs. "That, all that, is…"

"…is why I didn't want to tell you everything I knew," Bob murmured, stroking Harry's shoulders. "Now you see. It was truly the reason I didn't immediately take Megare up on her idea--I knew it was more likely to allow us to function as a unit, but you would know everything I desperately wanted to keep from you, for your own sake. I truly didn't intend to frustrate you, my love."

"Considering the things you weren't telling me, did it ever occur to you to be concerned for your own safety as well as mine?"

"Of course. It was simply a bit too late for me. Once known, one knows."

"I haven't even thought about all of it--not nearly all of it--and I still can't believe what you live with."

"What we will live with, now. And our…get, our combination--our 'love child', as he put it, has that information as well."

"Love child. I guess that's a decent description. I'm just glad the knowledge is…it's like us like it is with him--I have to go looking for something if I need it. Unless something reminds me."

"True; it would be a trial, being inundated with the minutiae of each other's entire lives--or existences--without warning. And it isn't as though we can use any of it it against each other," Bob chuckled, letting them separate a little so they could look in each other's eyes. "You can't use anything I did under geis against me, and I dasn't use anything you did in your youth or impatience against you, because I have the same sorts of fodder for you to use, lying in wait. Anything…highly personal, that no one at all knew…well, everyone has such things. Still a bit mortifying, but I trust, like me, you and Eryl are trying to avoid thinking of similar things about the other two of us anyway."

"Bet on it. My own humiliating crap is enough. But it figures you'd have perspective about that, too. And we've got bigger concerns anyway," Harry muttered, his gaze dropping to the log between them.

"I know," Bob sighed, lightly fingering the curls of Harry's hair as they moved in the breeze. "But I am desperately glad about one thing--Eryl loves us, rather than fearing us. Because he believes in our caring for him--has to know we do--he'll take care of us, do all he can to restore us, since he knows that when the time comes--if it does--we'll do the same for him. And he believes that because of you, you know."

Harry's coffee-colored eyes blinked at him through a softening sheen of tears. "Me?"

"If it were only me--though that would be impossible--he would probably be afraid, or at least concerned, for his life. His rock-certainty that we would not consign him to the aether when we were done with him comes from you. Such a thing is beyond even contemplation, to you. With me…you know that I, also, would not do so; but I would think about it--not in the sense of seriously considering it, but because it would be something that bore thinking about. To you, it simply wouldn't occur. And he arrives at an unquestionable conclusion against taking over our current body, because of you."

"But you wouldn't…"

"Not now, no. Not for a very long time would I have considered doing anything so cold-blooded. But I would think, about the situation, and the ramifications of guaranteeing his safety versus any other serious considerations. I would, I know, come down on the same side you would, after thinking…but you would never even conceive that there were sides to be considered, and neither does he. Like you, he believes there must be a way for all of us to live, fulfilled and content, no matter the outcome of this…insanity, this desperate lack of pertinent knowledge. He feels it natural that we all live, or we all…don't, at least not as we are."

Harry breathed, staring at the log between them. "I know. I remember his experiences, too, though I don't know if I'd put that exact interpretation on them. I gotta say I trust him, though. Even though he likes caviar." Harry made a face.

"You do dislike foods that are salty beyond a certain degree," Bob smiled a little, tracing a finger down the side of Harry's face. "You nearly spat out those olives."

"We were at Megare's, or I might have." Harry smiled a little. Then he looked up into Bob's eyes, rendered dark hollows in the mooonlight, and said "Did he give us this? This…as-good-as-real dreaming, the kind of thing you do with me?" The calm surf glistened in the light of a full moon, wispy cirrus creating a halo around the shining sphere. The breeze was fresh and green; salt scent came and went in the air currents--though the less attractive smells of the shore seemed to be absent--and farther up the beach, half-seen trees rustled in the quietly moving air. The land seemed to be rising toward hills. They'd never been outside Harry's dreaming room, in that scenario, but its sense of peacefulness and cleansing was even stronger now.

Bob shrugged. "He has to have. Neither of us are in a position to do so. And remember, we don't know what he can do. He hasn't tried to work any sort of serious magic yet."

Harry cocked his head. "Considering our over-the-top--to put it mildly--screwup in Megare's lab, when we were two wizards trying to operate one body, instead of just one with the interconnected power, knowledge, and reflexes of both? I'm guessing he's gonna kick some major butt. Actually, I'm betting the whole damn White Council would have trouble handling him."

"True." Bob grinned to himself, then glanced over Harry's shoulder. He smiled softly. "Harry, look behind you."

Harry turned; there was a large, squarish, shadowy shape just on the verge of the treeline--moonlight glinted off of latched-open french windows almost the size of doors. The rest was harder to pick out to their eyes, in the shadows of the trees.

"Is that…?"

"I think he's provided us with your dreaming bedroom," Bob said softly. "He must have found a way to do it before he fell asleep and turned into…us, again."

Harry gazed a moment, then said "It looks like it's attached to a larger…thing. Building, house-- back into the trees. Huh. I guess we should go see?"

"I think that would be appropriate." Bob took his hand, flesh against flesh, warm and real. "But perhaps a stop in the room we're familiar with, before we explore the rest."

"Oh yeah. That'd be real nice right now."

* * *

Eryl feared that the opponent he'd conjured might not be up to his standards, providing him little helpful practice with his preferred weapons. But, after his calisthenic warmup--Harry's body was familiar with the process of warming and loosening up, much as he liked to complain about it--he donned his tights and entered the arena. It was a domed room, lit with a circle of high pseudo-windows; the floor and walls were of pale-to-white-wood, complete with floor demarcations of contrasting-colored wood for fencing and other sorts of swordplay. Mats of different thicknesses could be arranged to suit the pertinent sport. Megare had conducted him to the place, and whether she created it especially for him or not was a question that could wait, perhaps indefinitely.

Eryl was prepared to use this particular practice session to gauge his level of proficiency with different weapons, rather than perform the sort of workout Bob had been used to in life; as it turned out, 'miscalculated' was too mild a word. His magical opponent--though mindless, unliving, designed to perform the specific excercises at the levels Eryl had set for it--had him sweating within a minute, and out of breath in an embarassingly small number of additional minutes. He halted the workout by raising his English cut-and-thrust vertically before his face in salute; the faceless phantom partner, of the same physical dimensions as Harry's body, did the same; and, for the time being, vanished.

Eryl panted his way to the wall and plopped down on the nearest mat rollup, a number of which were stacked near the door. "I'm pretty sure I just got my ass kicked," he muttered between breaths.

"It has been some time," came Megare's voice, and then her small hand was on his bare, sweat-sticky shoulder. "And this body is different."

"We've established that it being Harry's body shouldn't make a difference when I am the one using it," Eryl sighed.

"Still, it is exercise Harry does not do. He has the reflexes from Bob while the two of them are neither of them, but rather you; also, so you have the…what you call it, the way to see what opponent will do. You have all that. But the little muscles, all over, that are so important…"

"You're right," Eryl sighed, and looked up at her with a sardonic smile. "The fine muscle control in general isn't in shape. I suppose I'll have to start at the beginning."

"No, no, no--not the beginning. You need exercise of the muscles, not training of them. They mostly know what to do, and will learn quick what they do not, but they have not strength to do. Set your opponent to move more slowly. You need not change anything else. And if you will, I can practice training fine-muscle with you, in a different way--similar to martial art slow-movement training of muscle memory, but for fine muscles. Much can be done to strengthen muscles most do not know they have, even. Until they need them, or they tear, or some stupid thing."

"You're right, but I'm not excited about taking that much time, either, considering what we've already wasted. I need to get out there and get on this."

"It need not take much time, for muscle memory training that is mostly done; only a part needs help. It may not give the fine muscles all the strength they can build, but it will do well enough."

"I was just going to check my level of ability in main-gauche work--I've already manifested my preferred poignard, plus a hand-and-a-half, and perhaps a better coustille than any ever made--I thought it might get me past points a sword wouldn't be allowed, though I realized after that it was Bob's influence making me think so; even the poignard would be enough to cause commotion amongst the official types if I don't take steps. But…" he grinned abashedly. "I guess I'd accomplish more after a break to re-evaluate my situation."

"That is wise," Megare said. She gave him an arm up--he was dressed in nothing but a pair of sweat-drenched fencing tights, and light tractioned slippers--and he felt a bit gauche, looming over her, near-naked and sweaty to the point of dripping a little; but she seemed unperturbed. She did, however, say "You will shower, and I will review. We will begin tomorrow. If you are not too tired, we may attempt a bit larger magics then, too?"

"That'd probably be a good idea. And I won't take offense if you stand ready to contain."

"Very wise," she said, giving him a spearlike gaze before leaving him to towel off, so he wouldn't drip all the way to the guest room Bob and Harry had been using.

He dumped his sweated-up tights and things in the bin outside the room, from which they always emerged fresh--he felt stupid for Harry's sake about that; Bob could certainly be excused for a lapse in making such a mental connection, having worn nothing but ectoplasm for centuries and having to send his laundry out for washing when he was alive; but Harry was only so used to the laundromat he hadn't thought that Megare's magical abode might have such conveniences as a matter of course. Along with everything else, it was no wonder she had the place buried under the Himalayas; a magical dilettante could have found her otherwise. He headed for the shower.

Once inside, he turned on the water, stopped, and sighed. Bob, the singer, must have been the source of the lyrics that occurred to him--they are one person, they are too alone. Even when Bob and Harry showered separately--most of the time--there was back-and-forth goodnatured sniping, and the knowledge of the presence--in Bob's case, the nearly miraculous physical presence--of the other.

There was a tap on the door.

Wiping spray from his eyes, he looked through the gradually steaming glass to see Megare, naked, wearing an expression of profound sympathy.

Staring, not quite grasping this, he beckoned; she stepped in quickly and shut the door behind her. "I will to wash your back," she announced.

Before she could say or do anything else, he pulled her close; it wasn't easy to hide in someone that small, but her hair helped. She embraced him in return, arms around his waist, and rocked him gently.

"You are them," she said. "And there is only one of you, not the two of them. But you miss their love--you miss it, the way each of them would miss the other. I know, it is hard to explain. Do not try."

They stood under the steaming spray for a while like that, and Eryl, realizing that he was going to be the one to break this up if anyone did, finally managed a slightly snotty inhalation, and lifted his head from where he'd hid his face in her hair. "I think I can only stand this because I know…well, they love me, too. If they resented me, resented the necessity of my presence…but they don't. They dreamed, last night--I'm not there, I don't exist, while they dream, but I can remember afterward, just like they can remember what I do while I'm sleeping and they're…aware. I wasn't completely sure until…"

"I guess what they dream," she said, stroking the wet brown curls out of his face. "They cannot help it, to love you. They fear for you, as well...so. I will help? I help Bob and Harry."

"I would be nothing less than honored, milady," he whispered, his head hanging a little. That such help was no longer necessary wasn't an issue to Megare, and he was more grateful for the offer, in light of that, that than he could say.

It was amazing how bone-meltingly soothing it could be to have a trusted friend help bathe you, when the purpose of comfort was on the same level with the goal of cleanliness. She could wash pretty much anywhere on him without either of them batting an eye, though Eryl's eyes occasionally closed in relaxed pleasure for a bit. He did the same for her, though she hadn't gotten into the shower sweaty and disgusting. That wasn't the point.

After the inevitable skin-pruning began, they shut off the water and emerged, randomly drying portions of themsleves and each other. Eryl wound a towel around Megare's hair, and she smiled, and said "Be to watch," and there was a phoomph of steam surrounding her head for a moment. The towel was soaked; she peeled it off, and her hair was, at most, barely damp.

Eryl laughed softly. "I could have done that. Harry or Bob could have done that. It's just that…Bob is so unused to such things, and Harry prefers the more mundane methods, in day-to-day life."

"He loved his parents," Megare said, and the simple phrase was heartbreaking, with the emotion she put into it. "And he keeps to some such ways, in memory."

"Yes…he is a wizard, a determined one--but…some mundane things, they remind him…" He worked a bit of slick transparent stuff that she said was conditioner through her hair, and began carefully combing it out.

She interfered, trying to appropriate the wide-tooth comb. "I do my hair. You do your hair. Your hair dries without, you look like wind tunnel test person."

"But your hair is so thick…" Eryl said dreamily. He had to admit he was stroking as much as combing. "Let me, a while longer."

She sighed, with a smile that gave the lie to the put-upon demeanor. "Feels nice. Comb for a while. But I warn that when I comb yours, you will yelp."

"We'll wet it again. Or use this stuff--" he rubbed his fingers together with his thumb; they ran lightly with the colorless, nearly-water-consistency concoction Megare used.

She chuckled. "We will do that." She sat on a stylized Egyptian chair, the sort with arms but no back, that one often finds in plushy bathrooms; she arranged her waist-length hair and her posture for maximum access. Almost hypnotized, Eryl combed and stroked the shining black strands, with their highlights of red, until he couldn't take it any more and sank to his knees, wrapping his arms around her waist from behind. "Megare," he said quietly. There was no way to express his gratitude, or Harry's, or Bob's.

"Is all right," she murmured, wrapping her arms around his where they crossed her middle. "I know. I know. But I wish you knew."

"Of course--we have to know," Eryl said into her shoulder blade. "I mean--everything you've done for us. We just don't know why."

There was a pause, and she whispered softly "I like nice people." After a few moments, she said "We should fix your hair. And you must shave, while beard is soft." She squeezed his arms again. "I love Harry, and Bob. But you as well, for who you are."

"How?" he whispered. "You barely know me."

"You would be very, very surprised," she said, and rubbed his arms again, then gently detatched herself from his embrace and got up, turning to face him across the broad stool-chair. "Please. Let it wait."

He gazed down at her, and whispered "There is no one like you in the world, not in the human world."

She smiled. "Yes, there is. We keep low profile, no wish to be run over every day like you." She grinned. "You even know some of them, those like us; you do not know who, that is reason. Even Harry can be fooled sometimes, sweet Eryl. Now, it begins to be cool--we must put on clothes."

He nodded slowly, wishing there was a way to communicate more directly with Bob and Harry, instead of only being able to remember each others dreams/waking experience. Maybe one of the other two could explain the way he felt. It couldn't be romantic love--you don't fall in love, in so little time, with your midwife. But it was heart-deep, and he was fairly sure neither Bob nor Harry had felt exactly this, though they'd loved her for a long time.

"Um…what about my hair?" Okay, that had to come from Bob's contribution to his being.

"I will dress, you will get pants on, leave shirt off." She pointed to a crystal-hung shelf, and sure enough, stacks of folded clothing resided thereon. "And I will do…something with your hair, though I can promise little."

He chuckled. He remembered Harry cursing like a longshoreman, trying to get his hair to behave, ever since it had gone curly--and then added insult to injury by starting to recede; but he had a strong feeling Megare would have better luck with it. Not that it mattered; no one to see him here anyway except a bizarrely powerful, intelligent, and wayward hearth imp.

* * *

"What's that?" Bob wondered, coming up behind Harry in the study of the airy, two-story house Eryl had provided them, with the dreaming bedroom as a model. It was still night outside. The stars revolved, the moon rose and fell, changing in its cycles, and the sun never rose--dawn had been the image of Harry's beginning to wake, before. Now, it wasn't Harry beginning to wake, it was Eryl; and before the sun could begin to lighten the sky, Harry became something else--integral, inseparable from Bob, creating a third entity entirely. There was no dawn for them here, now.

But the night was beautiful, starry and moonlit and calm; some nights the light from the sky was bright enough to read by. When it wasn't, Harry and Bob sometimes wandered afield, looking at Harry's own stars, betting on the patterns they'd find. Harry had been reduced to helpless laughter or bittersweet tears more than once, at something he'd seen in his own sky.

"It's a letter," Harry sighed, and leaned back in his chair, stretching his shoulders against the kneading pressure of Bob's hands on them. Odd, how good that felt, when neither of them were material-- but everything else felt real, too, so what the hey. "I'm trying to think of a way to communicate with Eryl more directly than hoping he remembers the significant aspects of the dreams that we live in--and he's unaware of, 'cause he doesn't actually exist, until he wakes up and remembers. Like us, the other way around. Remembering what went on with him that day, when he falls asleep."

"Yes," Bob muttered. "It's an unsystematic procedure to say the least, to pool what might be crucial information.Especially considering a certain amount of ordinary dreaming goes on for him, and neither of us, nor he, have much control over that. It has to be confusing for him."

"I'm hoping this will help focus my thoughts enough," Harry sighed, leaning over the paper. He was sitting at a slanted mahogany writing desk, the high sort with a chair-back stool, and a writing surface that cushioned the paper for quills. Harry'd never written with a quill in his life--nothing very legible, anyway--but the silver square-nib pen he was using instead wasn't giving him even the slightest trouble. It also never needed dipping, though the inkwell held a pristinely full bottle of liquid india ink.

"Your calligraphy is lovely," Bob said, smiling and nuzzling his shoulder.

"You always said it stank."

"It does, usually, my darling. But apparently, the way you think the letters, here, comes directly out of your hands; if you had some kind of emotional attachment to your bad handwriting, it might not do so. I always wondered why someone with such a delicate touch at other things had such execrable lettering."

"Morgan said my symbology was inelegant, but he backed off when I said he was welcome to grab the chalk if he didn't like the way I was handling it."

"Morgan would say something like that," Bob sighed, "but I shouldn't. If poor handwriting is your worst flaw, you are indeed the saint I have often, to my anxiety, suspected you were."

"I'm not sure if that was a compliment."

"It was, my love." Bob kissed his head. "What are you writing to our darling young one?"

Harry glanced around. "Are you a Bob Dylan fan too?"

"One hears things. The letter?"

"I'm…babbling, so far. I don't know what to say--well, how to start. My mom…went, I was almost a baby--and I had nobody but you, after my Dad died…we could only get so close, no matter how much we wanted…it sucks. He's got us, he is us, he has our memories, but frankly that isn't such a plus in either of our cases. I just…want to give him something else. I can't touch him, you know? He has Megare, and Cruachan, but he won't have them for long--at least not close to him, not with him. I want him to know that he'll have us. We're…curtained off pretty emphatically, but we're here. He can speak to us, hear from us."

Bob's arms slid around his shoulders from behind, and he kissed Harry's cheek softly. "He has your heart, and for that, even if there were no other reason, I love him as dearly as you do. Let's see if we can come up with something memorable for him."

Harry turned his head to kiss Bob, and said "Maybe we could write him every night. He'll only remember his own dreams and vague assorted stuff from us, otherwise. He was only just born, and he's already risking his life for us. It doesn't seem like a lot to give him in return for that."

"Indeed. I wish there were some way to similarly thank Megare and Cruachan, but…"

"…but that'll have to wait, yeah, though he'll tell them for us. We gotta save the three of our own butts--all of which are mine--first."

"It's my own ectoplasmic bum we're trying to save," Bob corrected him gently. "None of this would be happening if you were willing to let me simply be released from the curse, although I also wish to--"

"You are not dying. Not now, not while I'm alive."

"Has it ever occurred to you that I might not especially want to live without you, either? After so much time as alone as only the dead can be, I doubt I could stand even another second of it."

"Uh…we'll go together. Pick a good day, grab hands and go skydiving one more time."

"Without chutes, I take it."

"You know, whee, then just painless…whatever. We're wizards; by the time we're finally old enough, and/or decrepit enough, to actually consider dying, it'll probably sound like the next great adventure--especially if we get to pick the time."

"You realize we'll need to consult Eryl about that."

"Oh, yeah…he has kind of a vested interest, currently, at least. Okay, let's try and write this…say what we want to say some way that'll stick with him. I know he knows how we feel. He just deserves to hear it, you know?"

"Yes, my darling," Bob said, squeezing Harry so tight he grfed. "I know."

* * *

Dear Eryl,

I'm thinking that if I work on this hard enough, write a good enough letter, I'll have to concentrate enough that at least some of it will stick with you more coherently than usual when you wake up. I mean, I know you remember some stuff--you know what it's like being in bed with either Bob or me, I noticed--God, you're just like Bob that way. But it seems like you deserve a little more effort. You were born--we created you--to save us, save Bob, and you're not only doing it, it's what you want, too. I didn't expect me and Bob would create a third party in my brain, at least without turning me into a multiple personality sort of guy. When we did, I thought, uh oh, everybody out of the pool, this guy's not going to want to risk himself. But then I remembered this--God, I'm glad you have all my memories, or this part of the letter would forever mark me as the world's biggest geek, assuming I've avoided that so far.

There was this Star Trek episode--Next Generation: Picard totally rules--when weird circuits building more weird circuits and connecting them started appearing all over the ship. Deanna the empath figured out that the ship was behaving like a living being, and Beverly the Doc figured out it was trying to reproduce, and when everyone said what the hell's up with that, Data the exposition android explained that when a technological item--technological meaning not from nature, unless you count being built by humans being from nature, since we're from nature--it's called an emergent property. Something that could never have been anticipated in a thought experiment, or a simulation, no matter whether you knew everything there was to know about the methods, materiel and everything else or not. So the ship reproduces and the little baby ship, which looks like a symmetrical abstract sculpture made of jumbo glow-in-the-dark pickup sticks, is born in a shuttle bay and the ship opens the door and the baby Enterprise flies off into the unknown. Everybody gets nervous, and someone goes to see Picard, who is reading something really intellectual and like that in his ready room, and says, well, we're sort of responsible for this thing, what if it does some nasty shit? And Picard says, the baby was built by the Enterprise, a ship of exploration and peace, containing virtually all the knowledge and the current nonjudgemental and nonviolent values of humanity (the ship's designed for a human crew, so it's got mostly human stuff available), and he'd like to think that the ship and the crew's contribution consisted of the best they had to give, and not the worst, or at least not only the worst. He doesn't think the baby ship will be an evil entity or anything, because of where it came from--especially since once they figured out what was going on, the crew did everything they could to help it, and it knew it.

And so, well, that was one heck of a lot easier to say that way, comparing it to a science-fiction show, than by saying I hope we gave you the best we have, and I love you, and I don't think you could do wrong if you tried. Fuck up, maybe, nobody's perfect; but it won't be for lack of trying to do the right thing.

I'll write you again tomorrow night, maybe with Bob--it'll be a lot more coherent that way--reading or remembering stuff like this, I bet you think of me as your weird uncle or something. But I wanted to add this first--don't feel bad that it feels like you're falling in love with Megare. When I felt like that, I thought it was the smartest thing I'd ever done. She's the thousandth soul that'll stand by your side to the gallow's foot and after, and short of Bob I've never had a better friend--friends that are as good, friends that are around more, like Murphy, but none better. Incidentally, I think Megare kind of likes you. See, you have all the qualities she really likes in me and Bob, and precious few of the unattractive or annoying ones. I bet she doesn't feel too good about it either. Maybe you should talk about it. Or maybe you shouldrn't. I'm not much of a talker; I always just end up putting my foot in it and making things worse. Somehow I can't see you doing that, though.

Bob sends his love. Have a good day. We'll be with you in spirit. And your synapses and stuff.

Your…whatever, friend is good,

Harry

* * *

"No," said Eryl, and swallowed more tea.

"I could be of invaluable service," Cruachan responded; he was bouncing up and down--apparently, anyway, all the signs that indicated that seemed to be there; it wasn't as though they could actually see him doing it, except for his eyes moving, and his teeth if they were showing--and the weird vertical distortion lines, like heat shimmers over hot asphalt.

"Oh, I'm not denying that, my dearest hobgoblin. I simply refuse to let you risk yourself. You have an unreasonable feeling of gratitude toward Harry and Bob--"

"They saved me from imprisonment in a ruin! All right, it was the Acropolis, but to a house spirit, do you know what even a spectacular ruin is like to be trapped in for any length of time? Not only that--though I offerred my services as return payment, they refused them and insisted that I was to consider myself their equal, and eventually their friend. They are my family, as is Megare, and now you. My own family, my own house, has been gone for centuries. And while this house has become a welcome and comfortable temporary home, it is, as you say, the house of wizards with whose working magical systems I am not familiar, and which I was not created to easily tolerate and abet."

"You know," Eryl said softly, setting his teacup down on the saucer so softly it didn't even clink, "most--almost all--house spirits would have been trapped at their place of abode, even in a situation such as yours, your connection to it being so strong, until they slowly dissipated. A few do follow their families, but that's not common except with those whose families move so often the connection is made to the family and not the hob. You were not a common house spirit even in your own day and time, were you?"

"You have speculated upon that, I see," Cruachan boomed, managing to sound stuffy about it.

"You were the spirit of a house of powerful magic workers. You…" he chuckled. "You're the Bionic Hobgoblin."

"What?" Cruachan asked, bouncing momentarily ceasing.

"Never mind. It means that you are not an ordinary house spirit, and you can do out-of-the-ordinary things. Your people obviously had a great deal of love for each other, were highly honorable, and devoted to the concept of sacred hospitality. Those things are all evident in you."

Cruachan swelled to the point his funky air-shifting seemed to fill half the room. "Thank you very kindly, Wizard Eryl," he said, with a note in his voice so formal it almost sounded like some sort of formula, an official sort of thanks.

"They were also devoted to the concept of utterly destroying anything that refused to treat with the clan family, attacking it instead--conducting the battle by magic if possible, by physical force if necessary."

"Of course," Cruachan said, still sounding as though he was receiving a compliment. "My family were all trained in fighting, with and without weapons, by the mother of the house, from young childhood."

"She was a war-teacher as well?"

"Yes. It was not universal, but in the part of Eriu where we lived, most mothers who were physically capable--childbearing or mishap rendered some of them unable to properly demonstrate technique--learned to teach the children the first, basic lessons of fighting, with and without different sorts of weapon. All the greatest battle-teachers--including Cu Chulainn's--were women."

"Yes, Scathach was her name--I recall the story," Eryl said, more to forestall a reminiscent ramble than to indicate his awareness of the fact that mostly women were battle-instructors in ancient Ireland. Not that he didn't usually enjoy listening to Cruachan's stories, and not that he didn't feel sorry for the imp, stolen from his home the way he'd been. But they had other things to discuss just now. "I do not intend in any wise to impugne your credentials in this matter, Cruachan. But I cannot allow you to risk yourself on this enterprise--the people I will be facing are the only sort in the world who can hurt or kill you."

"Whether you intend to impugne me, Wizard Eryl, you do so, with such statements," Cruachan growled, and the growl, while not loud, could be felt through the soles of Eryl's boots and the seat of his chair. "I am not accustomed to defeat. I have shown mercy and relented in battle. But I have not, on even a single occasion, been defeated."

"Well, that's obvious, isn't it, or you wouldn't be here. But you aren't used to fighting like the people you might have to fight, in this case. They aren't Irish warriors or Druids, they don't fight like them, they don't have the same priorities, and they won't react at crucial moments the way you expect them to. Any of those things could kill you, and they are all bound to happen if it should come to direct magical battle."

"You do not mention that as these people are not Druids, do not fight like it, do not have the same priorities--by which I assume you mean cultural taboos, plus their particular rules of honor--and they won't react similarly at crucial moments, this would give me at least as much of an advantage over them as they would have over me. Not only that--they will cast spells to stop a cacodaemon, an elemental, an infernal spirit, a disembodied entity of power such as a thought-form--or a discarnate sorcerer, perhaps…one who has somehow regained his life, and can now walk free of his body with his powers intact. But they will never, never think to cast a spell designed to neutralize the powers of a hobgoblin."

Eryl blinked at him. Then he blinked again. Then he grinned, and began to chuckle, and soon he was face down on the table roaring with merriment.

"May I take it, then, that the subject has been decided?"

Eryl coughed and sniffed, wiping tears of laughter from his face and blowing his nose on a paper napkin. "No, it isn't, but you've got my vote. We still have to get Megare's."

"I am inordinately fond of my lady Wizard, and grateful for her generous welcome. But she did not rescue me. You did."

"Keep in mind, Cru, I was very nearly born yesterday. If she thinks it's a bad idea, it probably is. It's her we need to convince that…what you actually are will probably protect you from everything except general strikes that would take the stuffing out of anything at all--though if you can…" he gazed at Cruachan's shifting form, there and not-there.

"…can be, primarily, not there when the strike hits…"

"…it'll hit you with a lot less force. You'll only catch the edge. If you can avoid pierogi grease that way, you can avoid a strike--just slide into a space where it isn't. Okay. You've convinced me. I think perhaps…we can convince Megare."

* * *

"Ah! Good! I will to come too then, please!" Megare hopped up off the bed, where she'd been meditating, holding the hand mudra for evoking inner strength.

"No you won't," Eryl said, jabbing a finger at her chest. "You are in every kind of danger in the book if you go broadcasting your presence to a bunch of wizards. Not very nice wizards. Real assholes, actually."

"Really now, Harry," she smirked.

He raised an eyebrow at her. "Can I help it if Harry's speech patterns carry a certain impact in conveying emotional states? Listen, Megare--" he took her shoulders gently. "Come on, I mean--everything I was worried about for Cruachan is true with you, and a whole lot worse is true for you, as well. You will not only be endangered as my ally, you'll be immediately recognized--your signature is far too distinctive to mistake. I'm going to have to perform a great deal of thaumaturgical chicanery to destroy the remnants of it on myself and Cruachan, though I may need Cruachan's help for his part of it. My wanting you to stay is not some misguided chilvalric idea, it's not that I don't want someone I love in the line of fire, it's that you in particular would be losing far too much--if you even survived. Once it was known you were alive and out of hiding--"

"I could ensure the success of your mission."

He sighed. He had thought of that, to his shame, and spent some time letting the realizations about why her presence with them couldn't be, come to him. "Megare…we don't even know for certain there's a resolution to be found. Our purpose here is to gain all the information about Bob's curse that we can, information only the people who constructed it would know--and certainly wouldn't have told him--but would have told the people who would be in charge of keeping tabs on 'the skull' once someone brought it across the Atlantic. If the limitations on Bob's curse weren't known, the construction of it, the side and back doors that might exist if he could just arrange for his master to open them--probably through his excellent acting, and I have reason to know just how excellent it is--a wizard of such fantastic caliber could arrange to free himself. That could mean to die, to possess a living human--or anything alive, until he could get to a human he could possess--or even create a material egregore. So these people know what there is to know--we only have to convince them to tell us. I admit we could use you there; you are a great deal more brutally practical against not-nice people than I am."

"I do not like mean people. I have lived long enough to know that some people are not hiding any good inside themselves, Eryl, and it is a waste to try to reach what is not there."

"I know that too. But I have enough of Harry's…squeamishness that I…have a hard time accepting it."

"Then I will to come with you, yes?"

"You will to come with us no. I'm sure Cruachan can handle anything in the intimidation or…physical inspiration department, that needs handling and that is beyond my powers of persuasion. But you'd be amazed at those powers, Megare. I may look like Harry; much of the time, I may sound largely like him--"

"Not so much as you think, neither one." She was smirking, shaking her head.

"--whatever, but the point is, Bob is one of my…parents, too. And they know who Bob was, and what he could do, and they'll know that he is now alive again in me, and has full access to those powers. I think between Cruachan and Bob we'd have them running fairly nervous--I admit Harry would be very little concern for them, wrong though they would be to feel that way; they know his power, but they know it's chained by his heart--and God, he'll get me for that. Stars, if I weren't Bob I wouldn't want to run afoul of him, either. Can you imagine what a sorcerer who could kill you and bring you back, drag you across the edge of life and death, could do to you? Take you so close, just close enough to taste death, feel the terror, and keep you there as long as he wanted--" Eryl shuddered. "Jesus H. Christ and the Great Goddess Astarte. Harry may scare the shit out of himself sometimes, but I bet Bob'd shock his own trousers full, at least if he were capable of having nightmares or anything."

Megare eyed him. "The aspects of you that are of Bob's influence, largely, will certainly give them pause. But you are Harry too. They know that as well. To them, Harry's heart, too large and still not large enough for his feeling, is a weakness, and they will play to it. You will be toyed with, if a certain person gets involved--"

"You can say her name."

"Not so easily as you may thing. But Mai will not have anything more important to do than this, I guarantee it. Even now, it is one of her top priorities. Do not ask how I know," she warned, flashing a quick finger in his face before withdrawing it at once. "I cannot be toyed with. Not by…Mai…" she paused, blinking, and swallowed, and continued gruffly "nor anybody else. None of them are stronger. None of them are more knowledgable. None of them have anything on me, and none of them would not be shocked to the point of at least temporary losing of their shit? That is correct? To that point, to see me there."

"But they would know you value me," he said softly. "Or you wouldn't be there at all. That, they could use against you."

"Only if they get you, and if I am there, they will not. Besides, I come up with a reason why Bob's restoration would benefit me," she said, waving an idle hand. "I am also known for--how did you put it--working and playing well with others."

"Megare, even if they believe your attachment to Bob's restoration is practical and not sentimental, it's still something they can use."

"But it will be the only thing they can use, and compared to what I can provide on the positive side, it is very little."

Eryl sighed. Bob, he thought, you're a genius. Why aren't all the interlaced parts of me that come from you being any help? She heard I gave in to Cru and now she's determined.

"Please stay," he whispered. "Please don't do this. It's not only your life, or your safety, at stake. It's everything you've worked to build, for centuries at least, all over the world. It would be easy to trace your headquarters here if they got you immobilized even briefly, and imagine what they could do then. And it…it would be easy for them to use you against me, Megare. I love you."

She rested her hand on his cheek. "I love you too, Eryl--"

"No. I'm in love with you." He glanced away. "Harry…he said in a letter he wrote me that I shouldn't feel bad about it, that it happened to him too, thinking he was falling in love with you…but he didn't understand. Together, he and Bob apparently are in love with you."

She was very still. Then she whispered "Then I am as you said. A great weapon against you, if I am caught at a moment where I defend elsewhere."

"Yes," he said. "I…" he turned and wandered away a couple of steps. "I didn't want to tell you like this, because it makes it sound like I want you out of danger because…well, you see what I mean. But that's not it. You would be a major target, and if they managed to…anything, trap you, separate us, any of a million things--Harry can't be as gentle and sweet-hearted as he is, as a part of me--and more importantly, Bob can't turn off his conscience if he has to, not for any reason, which would limit me. And the worst thing is, if they'd managed to use something against you that could render you helpless enough, odds are it will do the same to me, currently highest-power wizard in the world or not. And I won't be able to lie about how I feel, I won't be able to hide it. My energies will be going for other things. If you're there, and anything jeapordized you beyond your ability to handle--I know, there's not much that could, but we're not talking a situation where we can afford to screw up even once--my reaction would be unmistakable. One of the sad advantages of being a single person constructed from the unbelievably intricate interconnection of two other people is that--odd as it may seem--you know yourself to a depressing degree."

"Yes," Megare said, dryly, but in what sounded more like fellow-feeling than disparagement. "I can see that is problem. I would find it so. I could argue more. I could say, we hold Cruachan in reserve. If anything happens, they are not ready for him. He can get around their magic. He can avoid their attacks." She sighed. "I think perhaps you should do that anyway--while remembering he has no magical attack capability but his own nature…but without me. I must not endanger you. Such love is too great a liability to be defeated even by my power. It is--must be--Bob's and Harry's, intermingled, catalyzed, changed--so you love me in a way neither of them do, but both do." She paused. "I knew it. I am sorry, Eryl. I knew before you said. But I did not want to see that in you, it was so much easier for you, and me, if it were not so--but it is clear. I am sorry I made you hide it. That was unkind, a mark against my honor, and irresponsible to pretend such a thing."

"Megare--" he turned back, his hands moving uncertainly, then only taking one of her hands and holding it in both his own. "Don't think of it like that. You just didn't want to make things harder on me by making a point of it. You can't love a…damn, 'child' doesn't even begin to cover it--something like me, like what I am next to you. I'm a mayfly, I'm a grub--"

"Stop! I will suddenly become extinct!" she laughed; he had to smile, too; it had sounded a bit like the beginning of an incantation. "You are not so young," she said gently. "There is no one alive to compare you to. You have Bob's and Harry's memories; especially Bob's make you very old, but the combination even older. But you also have your own personality, one unlike either man's. You are centuries old, thirty-seven years old, and a new life that opened his eyes only a few weeks ago. I love all three of them. You must believe that."

She didn't address what he had only almost said--that he was a synthetic being, and real as he felt, he was not, precisely, an entity unto himself--but the statements and responses would have been formulaic, reassurances and denials and platitudes, and there was no point going into that. What they did have to say was enough.

"I believe that," Eryl said, smiling, but his eyes sheened, showing the sadness he wouldn't show any more obviously. "And if we had time…I'd like to believe you'd come to love me the way I do you. But I realize that even with enough time, that probably isn't possible."

"I honestly do not know, my dearest Eryl," she said softly, stroking his hair. He hadn't got the trick of making it behave; he remembered that Harry was considering leaving a letter of instructions on the subject. She stroked it down and into place as she went on "I am very, very old. The kind of love you mean…as I said, you remember, when I was half-drunk and you had to hold me on the cushions in my budoir sitting room. I said, I am very old, and I no longer want what the young want. I see it…too much of it, it…I see it from…too far away."

"Perspective," he said quietly. "You have perspective about it."

"Yes. Too much perspective, I think, not to know when something is only a response to this or that, a response to the response, a response to a feeling that there is no reason but hope or intuition for…it does not seem like real love to me. Usually, it is harmless, but it is designed to keep the species going, not to make us happy. It is…exciting, and wonderful, beyond wonderful--I remember that much; but it also destroys, being based on things not ultimately real, and I cannot say that I miss it so much, not any more."

Eryl stood holding her hand, gazing into eyes such a deep brown they were nearly black. "How old would I have to be for you to believe that I know what I'm feeling?"

She frowned "I did not say your feelings were not real to you, nor that you did not--"

"Just answer. How old?"

She smiled. "At least older than a few weeks. You know no one but me, Cruachan, and…yourself, and you remember Bob and Harry--yes, all their memories, and in dreams, but it is not the same as living your own life. Eryl…I created you, in a way. It would take time for that as well, not to be…"

"I understand," he said, carefully releasing her hand. He took a deep breath, let his head fall back, and exhaled, straightening his shoulders and raising his head again. "So we've decided--Cruachan and I will go, and you will stay here. Now we need to work on details. For instance, there's a lot you can do, even staying here. We should go over what's available right at the moment, and then brainstorm."

She gazed sadly at him for a moment--he realized that her eyes on him had been just a little sad ever since Bob and Harry had started trying to run Harry's body together--and wondered how she had known, or, maybe what exactly she had known. She didn't seem to be in any kind of a panic, and showing any sort of emotion was not something Megare had any problems with--she was a fucking bantamweight, pretty much--so it probably wasn't anything dangerous.

But he wished that looking at him didn't make her even such a little bit sad.


	17. Chapter 17

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the characters and I don't own this story.

**_LOUD AND CLEAR! I DO NOT, HAVE NOT AND WILL NOT EVER OWN THIS STORY!_**

**This story is the property of Tang Guangzhen who was kind enough to give me permission to post this here. Any flames about that will be used to fry your ass.**

**Thank You**

* * *

My Dearest Eryl, 

I am dreadfully sorry to discover the state of affairs, concerning Megare, that you must deal with all on your own, as neither my memories nor Harry's are going to be much help to you--except in knowing that losing, or never having, a particular love is, indeed, something one eventually gets over. I have learned enough from Harry, and from my long half-existence, to know that those words will be little comfort to you for the moment; but please remember that it is true. A time will come when you do not have to constantly wrestle with the emotion that tries to rear its heartbreaking head at inopportune moments. It will help when you and Megare are no longer in such close contact--though I know, her being the one who created you, in a sense, and cared for you while you learned yourself, she will never be absent from your heart. There did come a time when I could think of Winefride without pain, within what would have been a mortal lifetime. And eventually, luck and magic brought me to Harry, about whom no more need be said; you know that story.

As Harry says, I believe I'm making a hash of this. I intended to be encouraging; I hope you found my words to be so.

We've been giving some thought to your name. You won't be able to use Eryl; the use-name Cruachan suggested you learn to answer to--Tomos, Megare suggested, or probably its English variant Thomas, as being less noticeable, is common enough. You're welcome to use our names for the rest--I've only the two, since the higher nobility of my time did not exactly have family names--we have pedigrees, house affiliation designations. I was "of Bainbridge" because I was one of a few principle members of the peerage there, and owned a good chunk of the countryside about the place. I actually had several other designations--as you'll recall if you think about it--but I certainly wouldn't shall-we-say bless you with any of them. Harry has a number of suitable appellations, however--I'm rather fond of Blackstone, but he says that's evidence of my morose nature. In any event, it might be best to choose names, as you move about, that reflect nothing of your origin. It was quite intelligent to ask for a name from Megare. She gave you one with power and protection, and it need be known by no one but her, yourself, and, of course, our ever-faithful hobgoblin.

Not to be blunt, but what on earth are you going to do with him on the way there, and in other such circumstances once you arrive? It's true he's capable of making himself both invisible and inaudible to those whom he does not wish to see or hear him, and bumping into people isn't a problem for a creature who need not technically exist in the space he's occupying. So long as he's paying attention. But he's…how shall I put this without sounding ungracious…what with the teeth, and the eyes and all…rambunctious. At least sometimes. It is part of hobgoblin nature to become excited and physically exuberant; it's just that usually, no one can tell, unless they're deliberately observing the little creature for some reason.

It's not that I'm against your taking him with you; I was quite relieved, actually. Harry is bleeding, of course, about the possibility of his new friend being injured or killed by going into a situation where the only humans who could hurt him will be found--and that he's going, as far as Harry can see, simply out of gratitude to us. He does not understand Cruachan's views of these things; I'm somewhat more familiar with the framework of life Cruachan sees and believes in. In any event, I think this is as good a reason as any to stand by one's friends, and I think we've proven to him that we are his friends, as well as a very satisfactory temporary family. Although I think he may also have a wistful thought or two about staying with Megare. Gods know Harry and I have. However, Cruachan's expressed his feelings about the house, and whether it's appropriate for him to make a permanent home here, and he's had a noticeable bit of trouble performing his maintenance duties--the house cooperates to a point, but some things are problematic. It's rather like trying to work magic on Megare.

And speaking of whom, Megare herself is a different story, as far as wistful thoughts go…as she apparently is to all of us, the three of us--Harry and I, and the wholly new person Harry and I make in you. Good luck with your planning.

As for the time we get while you sleep--the time you can spare from the portions you'd usually remember, that is--we've been getting caught up on anything you might have reason to use. We found a library almost as soon as we began looking for one, in this ultimate wizard's house; everything either of us ever knew is there to be reread and refreshed. We can't do much in the way of practical experimentation or even ordinary practice, obviously, but we can certainly make sure you won't forget anything you need to know when you need to know it.

Harry tries to get me to teach him to genuinely horseback ride, or control a flat-bottom coracle, every time we go to Ireland--he's beginning to love Ireland, the way I remember it, as much as I do--but I won't, because he'll have the reflexes in his head, but not in his body, and once this is over and we all have something separate to live in, he'll leap gaily into the thick of it and kill himself gruesomely, or in the case of the coracle, douse himself ignominiously. He's in a state, and needs to find things to do, preferably constructive ones, or at least something new and complex to learn. He sees the physiological logic of being able, here, to train his brain but not his body's nerves--that portion of his muscle memory--but he's impatient and nervous, and he can never be still for long when he's like that. He can never be still for long when he's not like that, for that matter, unless he's exhausted, and he's got no real way to tire himself out here. Beyond, ahem, me. I notice you're far more sedate. Active, but calm, physically. I believe that comes from my side of the family. Your posture is better than his, too. Oh, dear, he'll make me pay for that. I suppose I'll live. Perhaps if I added that this grace you supposedly get from me is far more noticeable on your longer legs and body than it is on me?

Bloody, he'll make me pay for that as well. Relax, Harry, I wasn't putting anybody at all down with that comment. Especially not me.

Harry's sniffing about the study; I'd better close this before he drags me off the writing table's stool. You might try writing us. We'd love to hear from you, cuisle mo chroi, as Cruachan would say.

All our love and good wishes--Harry includes his--

Your friend, Bob

* * *

"He's right, of course," Eryl said, cradling Megare in one arm as they leaned against the front of the sofa in the sitting room by her own bedroom. They were both a bit stuffed and winey, but nothing that interfered with their functioning; they'd needed the relaxing effect, of the food as much of the wine.

"Who is right?" Megare slid down a little farther on the big floor cushion, out of his arm, to rest her head on Eryl's ribs.

"Bob. We can't hope to get Cruachan home the same way Bob and Harry got here. I can't think of any way to disguise him as, I don't know, an exotic pet or a zoological specimen or anything else, for that matter--let me rephrase; we could do it…"

"…but it would take experimenting," she finished, nodding. "Time. You do not have much time. But I do not think you need to get home by walking the distance, as it were. I believe you and I can teleport you close enough to where you need to be that you can make the last jump; it is possible we can send you the whole way."

"That's…a lot of distance, Megare, and we're living things," he muttered, more to himself than to her. "Very weird living things."

"I know this. I am not born yesterday. But together--perhaps with Cruachan's help--we can do it. We should begin to concentrate on the specifics of the spell--what systems we use, what we need in power, in materials…in other preparation, like--"

"--a bomb disposal unit's portable blast chamber…"

"Silence this noise. I do not take any chance on your life and Bob's and Harry's, or Cruachan's, either."

"I know, sorry. It was just my little joke."

"Very little. What you must decide is if you are ready. You do not want to blow up for no reason."

"I said I was sorry."

"My little joke." She bit him gently in the ribs, through one of Harry's yam-colored t-shirts.

"Asshole."

She grinned. "What you think?"

"I think…" he reached a long arm toward where his sword was hanging over a chair back near the door, and the English cut-and-thrust slithered from the scabbard with a musical shhhinggg and flew to his hand, glowing about the pommel just a bit. He held out the other hand, and his poignard jumped from the sheathe to follow a similar trajectory, one blade on either side of Megare, held well away from her.

"I think I feel comfortable enough with these that there are no issues there. I can't recall Bob ever having an easier time with his staff or wand. But then, it never occurred to him to use something for which he had gross motor reflexes already."

"Harry?"

"Will miss his hockey stick terribly, I fear. He makes new wands like origami, but that stick will be a sore loss to him. You'll keep it for him, won't you?"

"It will be as safe as any of you are here."

"That's pretty safe."

She nodded against his side. "And how else?"

"How else…" he pondered. "I'm not sure how much I'm deliberately delaying and how much might actually need work--and how much is simply going to have to do the way it is, needing work or not. If you'll run through some exercises with me, I suppose the answer to that will simply be…the toss of a coin, by this point."

"It is your choice; I cannot make for you."

"Or you probably would, you great busybody." He tickled her just a little with the hand that had been holding the poignard, and she grinned and caught his fingers. His comment wasn't fair; she was only a busybody with them, but that was rather the point; that they loved her for it.

"You know…I know they trust me to make this decision, but I don't believe it's without reservations here or there. Harry worries about Bob's arrogance making me reckless, and Bob worries about Harry's temper and other hotheaded tendencies doing the same thing. Perhaps I should ask them."

She turned her head up, on his chest, to look at him. "Write a letter? They do well making a thing that you remember as words, as a dialogue with them, by doing that, making a letter out of it, concentrating on it."

"It isn't as good as being able to have a conversation with them, though I do know things I never could only through conversation--having their memories, and their additional memories of every night as this thing drags on, lets me know them and what they think in other ways…but it's a bit disorganized. I know their feelings on the subject, I know the pros and cons they're considering. But I don't know what conclusions they themselves would come to and give me, and that's what I need to know. They've been lovely about giving me my head on this, as on everything else, but it comes down to them. At first it was only Bob who needed rescuing. Now that Harry…now that I think he would die as well, one way or another, if Bob were destroyed by being ousted from his body, it's both of them in my…well, the long and short of it is that this is not a decision I should make alone, even with the best of expert advice and support." He stroked her shining black head.

"Expert advice says, make a letter, a thought-form to leave for them, there in your mind, instead of materialize it on any outer planes," she murmured, wriggling to get comfortable on his chest. She had a tendency to view large and trusted friends as body pillows. She was too small for there to be any physical objection, since she was careful with her elbows and such, and she did radiate…something. That the experience generally ended there was only a slightly disappointing experience for the body pillow, since she never started something like that with anyone who'd take it the wrong way.

She'd even tried to pull back from Eryl after his admission, but he wouldn't have it. If they couldn't be as he might have wished--and he had known from the beginning of his feelings that they couldn't; he was no fool--they would be friends, and he would not allow his less convenient feelings to ruin that. The iron control that allowed him to make such decisions and carry them out with a minimum of effort, he knew, had to come from Bob, from the ghost's needing to develop that ability to maintain his sanity. Harry would never have managed it. He'd have had to distance himself for at least a while, like most people.

"That sounds like a fine idea. Late as it's getting, I'll go settle in; a bit of a working after I've relaxed--I can handle it, no problem. If I need help, I will ask," he added, fending off her glance up at him.

"Very good. We will all go rest. Except Cruachan, who is in garage fixing my car. Do not ask me how. If transmission falls out, I will know who to blame, but…I will probably be too busy laughing and lifting car to safety."

"He does seem to adapt quite readily to new circumstances, for a hearth imp," Eryl observed. "If that's not an understatement."

"Of course it is. He is Bizarro Hearth Imp. I must to bed; you too." She started trying to get up, but he had to move first, because his elbow was pinning her hair to the couch and his hip was on part of her red silk muumuu.

* * *

Dear Bob and Harry,

Thank you for your recent missives. Reading them was both interesting and comforting. I hadn't thought of the method; your simple concentration on the concepts via writing down and reading over your letters worked well enough for their subject matter, but this topic is something I didn't dare take a first-try sort of chance with. The redoubtable Megare suggested a thought-form, so here it is, and I hope it's not the size of a sheet and draped over a tree in your front yard, or spelled out in the clouds, or some such. I've never tried this--creating a thought-form and doing nothing with it but leaving it in my head--before. I'm hoping it'll appear as a note on your bed, when you "wake".

So, the point. I believe I am ready to return you to Chicago, and set about finding the details of Bob's curse that we don't already have. Once that's done, I'll be able to come up with some way to return Harry's body to him completely without leaving Bob to, shall we say, move on, as long as he wishes to continue as part of this plane. Discussion of the specific pertinences, owing to the fact that I have your memories, you have mine, and the process is constantly cumulative, is unnecessary. What is necessary is for us all to make a decision--is it time, or is there something that had better have more work first? After all, we've no idea what we might have to face. Simple apprehension would be the first obstacle to avoid, of course, but from there, it's difficult to know which way we're to proceed.

There is also the manner of our return to be considered. As you know, Megare and I have discussed Harry's idea of putting Cruachan in a crate, which would bore him a bit, but do him no other harm; however, there is little telling how customs would react to him, for I would not be present to alter the reactions of drug animals or fool any devices using EM radiation to examine a crate's contents. The issue is capped by the fact that flight-switching and such would separate us by many miles, for too long, and far too often. The passenger compartments aren't much better an idea, since Cruachan does have to maintain some physical presence in the human dimensions at all times, whether it moves about or not. In fact, it's all the moving about that would create the problem. He cannot go to sleep--that sort of "betwixt and between" suspension--as he did to arrive in the northern Mediterranean area, since this is not his home, nor is it to be moved in any part.

Still, if I had to, I could get Cruachan to Chicago with me via the usual routes, even if I had to make him manifest as a huge stuffed toy and call him a gift for my niece. (I would have to work a good deal of continuous magic to effect that, of course; plus there's the fact that he might never speak to me again. On that subject, to digress for a moment, Megare has generously gifted Cruachan with the translating device he wears; it is quite a gift, for such things can't be easy to make for a wizard to whom the whole idea of word as symbol for thing or concept is a foreign notion she's had to learn to deal with on a secondhand basis. But if something happens and it is neutralized or lost, we can, of course, whip up some sort of substitute spell that will do, at least, until we can arrange something more permanent for him.)

Megare, as you know, believes that she and I together can effect a teleportation that would either get me to Chicago or get me close enough that I could handle the final jump, or jumps, alone. Also as you know, I've been spending a lot of time staring contemplatively at that huge relief globe of the earth Megare has in the library and wondering about the difference between desperation, genuine confidence, bravado, and total, boggling arrogance. Megare says that since the theory by which the usual method operates does permit "travel"--or, rather, not-travel, simply "being there" as Megare would put it--of any distance, limited only by the various factors of power and control in question, there is no reason two wizards of our caliber should not be able to accomplish it, and I of course don't believe Megare would put any of us in danger knowingly. I think, if anything, she would be overcautious. She has many friends, but as is necessary for her safety, few are wizards--people who can truly understand her--and she values us all very much.

Since your own lives are at stake, I didn't feel comfortable making a unilateral decision. I may know all your thoughts and feelings on the various subjects, but I needed to call your attention to them in a specific context and allow you to draw conclusions that only you have the right to draw; any conclusion I draw about what you would choose, from what I know of your thoughts on the subjects, would only be a well-informed guess, and that's not good enough for something so important. Besides, despite my having your memories and some of your characteristics, we all think differently. I'd more than likely be wrong, no more time than I've had to get to know you in the relevant terms.

So take as much time as you need, but remember what we have to spare; Megare and I can't start work on the problems/solutions until we hear from you, and we're both twisted a bit tight over this. Thank all gods for Cruachan. If it weren't for him, I don't think we'd ever laugh.

I hope you aren't as stir-crazy as I suspect I would be--Bob probably isn't, this is likely a walk in the park next to his skull--and I love you river-deep, and send me a similar message, something solid enough that I don't have to make any guesses, all right? Guesses won't do for this.

Your twisted love-child,

Eryl

* * *

"Megare," he murmured, crawling into bed with her.

"Mm," she said, rolling over and snuggling against him. "Hmgm."

He caught her unhesitatingly and held her comfortably, making a shoulder for her head, but persisted "Megare, I need you to wake up, you have to read my letter. I want to know if I said everything I need to."

"Mrf."

"Megare." He began to shake her by shaking them both, gently and rhythmically, such that she was smiling when she woke, but saying things like "Que paso? Was ist los? Q'est-ce que c'est? Wat is het? 무엇이 일어나고 있는가?"

None of that was English, but it was plain enough. "I need you to read my letter, Megare. Before I go to sleep and they get it. I don't want to leave anything important undealt with in it."

"Mmm." She threw an arm around his neck and burrowed into him, obviously with the intention of going back to sleep.

He sighed, wrapped his arms around her, and sat up with her; she made a complaining noise, and he used one arm to hold her up and the other to drag the thick mass of hair away from her face, making her eyes squint even in the faint gold lights around the room. "Yes, Eryl," she sighed. "Say again?"

"I need you to wake up just long enough to read my letter and make sure I've got it right. I don't want to leave anything out."

"Mm. Letter was my idea, so okay, I read. Let me see," she said, looking around.

He materialized the thought-form letter briefly as light-only in the human dimensions, hanging in the air before her. She squinted and read, her lips moving as she did so. She nodded at a couple of points, chuckled at one or two that he suspected had to do with Cruachan, and then turned and gave him a glare.

"You make no say about you having place," she said, whacking him a light one with the back of her hand against his sternum. "Only about saving Harry and Bob. Not to be treating yourself as paper bag, please. We did not bring you into the world to use you and let you die. You are not egregore, not bud-will. You are person. If you do not mention you too in the part you mention them, they will write you very smoking-glowing letter and give you indigestion, they will be so angry."

Eryl glanced down, and the letter vanished. "I hadn't thought of that. I suppose I hadn't thought of anything beyond the immediate problem. But that makes things even more complicated."

"So what. Things already complicated, like ball of string, like rubber band knot they are complicated. One more rubber band, bah, who cares. Not to be making silly self-sacrificing, please. Harry is enough for that."

He smiled without looking at her. "I love your sense of practicality."

She kissed his cheek. "I love how you think of them first, us all first. You are champion nice person. But to be thinking of yourself too, please. Go away, fix letter, let me sleep."

"I should manifest myself a skin-tight suit with a cape and a big N on the chest."

"Fine, do elsewhere. Choladh samh, bonsoir, gute Nacht, buona notte, go away, I am asleep," she said, flopping back down and burrowing under the red sheets and heavy comforter.

He smiled, gazed at the little lump she made, kissed his fingertips and touched the lump with them, then got up and started for the door.

"Be to feel that," she muttered, almost inaudible.

"You were meant to, amica sine fraude."

* * *

"Harry. Our unusual get has left us a missive."

Harry blinked blearily, turning to get comfortable on Bob, who sighed and fell over on his back as Harry pushed him there. Harry rested his head on Bob's chest and said "We wrote ourselves a letter? Like the ones we've already done?"

"A bit different in being from Eryl. But since we fragment so thoroughly and emerge as an utterly different, far more thoroughly joined personality--much of us does, anyway, I'd imagine a great deal of 'us', as in you and I, is in his subconscious and probably unreachable--you could say our, as he puts it, twisted love-child wrote us a letter."

"What's it say?"

"He wants our opinions on whether he's ready to try to get us all back to Chicago, and, partially because of the difficulty of transporting Cruachan by conventional means, Megare has suggested teleporting."

"Well, that's pretty insane. What do you think?"

"I think that once I found out that the doors to Megare's abode are not simply doors, but standing teleportation spells to…I actually don't know how many different places--I doubt there's any way she could make a miscall. I believe Eryl would be quite safe, assisting Megare in particular; I also believe it isn't out of the realm of possibility Eryl could do it on his own. If he were not half you, and any…more typical wizardly lusts for power that might come from me were not altered and blunted by being particlized and reassembled with your own utter lack of such…I would be very, very afraid of him, with my specific power--and yours--at his disposal. And what all that means is, I think Eryl can get back to Chicago via teleportation without danger to any of the three of us. I worry a bit about Cruachan, though."

"Yeah, his nature…" Harry paused to start kissing around on Bob's chest. "We don't want him skidding off in some weird direction. This poor hobgoblin stuck on the other side--I know he's the Incredible Hulk of hobgoblins and that the denizens of the darkness there would not like him if he were angry, but he's not a creature of that world. He's not entirely a creature of this one, either, but it's not impossible the other side darkness could kill him even if nothing else did...and what all that means is that if he's not all here, it might be hard to make sure all of him will 'just be there'."

"Well, that would be the kind of thing, one kind at least, that Eryl wants us to think about. He knows, as he says, our thoughts on the various subjects; but it is impossible to know anyone well enough always to know what they would decide--since that isn't always determined by what one would rather do, and people will surprise you that way for other reasons, too."

Harry looked up; Bob took the opportunity to smooth his hand over Harry's jaw--which erased the stubble from his face.

"Hey." Harry grinned, touching his own cheek. "Put that back."

"Move so your head's not on my chest, and I will. That scruff isn't long enough yet not to scratch."

"You could've grown it a little then. This makes me look like Eryl."

"Nothing could make you look that much like Eryl. He wears your body quite differently, trust me. He's even--I suppose because of your somewhat…introverted stance--taller than you are. You easily could be brothers, or some other fairly close degree of relation--cousins, perhaps--but no one would mistake you for the same man. No one would even mistake you for twins, unless you both became very accomplished actors and deliberately sought to fool people. Now, what were you going to say before I so rudely denuded you of that blasted stubble?"

Harry made a loud raspberry on his sternum, making Bob laugh, managing to say through it "I doubt very much that was it."

"No, I was gonna say," Harry said, resting a folded arm on and kind of around Bob, and his chin on the arm, "that we might wanna ask Cruachan."

"I'm sure they will. It's our own safety we should be--"

"He's gotta know I'll want to hear about whether they think it'll be safe for Cru. I can't decide just for me and you any more than I could decide if I thought it'd be the best move we've got just for me, without you."

Bob pondered. "Megare would be the best person to ask about that, I think. The next best being Cruachan himself, if he can be made to understand the operational theory in a reasonable amount of time."

"We gotta write another letter."

"Not necessarily." Bob held the parchment up to look at it, unfolded and one end weighted by the broken, heavy wax seal--imprinted with an English cut-and-thrust, Harry noticed, recognizing it from Eryl's memory; the kid was just flashy, that was all there was to it. Morgan's sword-staff wasn't a sword; it was shaped like one for reasons known only to Morgan, since one usually disguised one's staff as something that wouldn't cause alarm. A champion-level swordfighter of whatever specific branches of the art could be excused for obtaining a permit and carrying a sword at least at times, for the purpose of getting in daily practice at a studio or the park while trying to have a life. Morgan's sword looked obvious and proplike. As he'd thought, there must be a reason, but if so, it was Morgan's secret.

Bob was reading from the letter. "'… Even so, if I had to, I could get Cruachan to Chicago with me via the usual routes, even if I had to make him manifest as a huge stuffed toy and call him a gift for my niece…I would have to work a good deal of continuous magic to effect that, of course; plus there's the fact that he might never speak to me again.' I believe that if he could do that--or something like it, he's obviously joking about the specifics, but not the important part--that he could render Cruachan transportable in a cruder fashion than teleportation--he must be able to focus all of Cruachan's essential self in one place, at least long enough to make a teleportation crossing. The tone of the letter is that he doesn't see Cruachan's teleporting as a problem, but rather as a solution, in the case of our imp. It's us he wants to be sure he has permission from."

Harry thought about that. "I guess," he acceded. "Shit, if he can get Cru through safely, he's got my vote. We're living in his central nervous system. Uh, my central nervous system. If that makes it through with us, and anyway he is us, we'll all make it. If it doesn't, we're all pretty fucked, wouldn't you say?"

"Yes, one can accomplish very little without one's brain and spinal cord."

"So, we give him our thumbs-up?"

"Harry…I wonder something sometimes. You seem to have a bit of resentment toward Eryl--you seldom call him by his name, for example--yet I know…" he set a hand on Harry's now-smooth cheek, trailing his thumb lightly along his temple. "I know you love him as much as I do."

Harry chuckled, looking down, then said "This is embarrassing. Bob, it's pure vanity. It's my body, and he's sexy as hell in it. He's got your grace, your…the way you move like a dancer, the way…it's different on him, 'cause the body's different, but…it just seems like, it's my body, and if he's so incredibly hot, why the hell aren't I? Why does he get the moves and not me? There, I told you it was embarrassing."

"Well…you could try shaving regularly, working on your posture and paying more attention to your surroundings when you move, and working more on everyday trance and meditation…but then you wouldn't be nearly as attractive to me," Bob pointed out. "I'd still love you, of course. But it's silly to compare yourself to Eryl. He's a different man. Child. Whatever applies, he's not you."

"That practicing with the sword, against a conjured opponent or alone--the specific stretching and stuff, all that--he does it in front of floor-to-ceiling mirrors, like dancers and singers and martial artists do to make sure they're getting it right…"

Bob smiled. "And you wish you didn't have to look at it in his memories."

"I could never do that stuff. It's…really kinda hard on the old ego, you know? I don't know how to feel about it. I mean, geez, he does it in just tights, I guess fencing tights or something, and he's not the least bit embarrassed in them, and the really annoying thing is that if you put me in tights I would die and everybody looking at me could immediately see why I was dying because I'd look like a failed fairy, but not him. He makes tights--and grace--look macho. Or, no, more like…masculine. Like you. He doesn't have any more reason to be embarrassed in tights than…"

"…than a fencer?"

"…than fucking Baryshnikov, before he got too old to be beating himself up that bad every day. Those leaps the male dancers do have gotta kill your knees."

Bob bit his lips to keep from laughing, and took a breath to speak. "Harry…when I remember watching him practice in the mirrors, I feel envious, too. Those are all my signature moves, developed and changed, yes, but recognizable to me, certainly. Those are my memories of the sword that he's calling on, my hard-earned reflexes that he's starting from the memory of, and honing into his body. If I did the same thing, I could take him on. I might even win a respectable amount of the time, though he has a higher center of gravity and considerable reach on me. I'd have to spend most of my time trying to get under his guard, or bop him in the head with a thrown main-gauche. But that's my ability, Harry, even if your body. So remember, it's just that…neither of us could possibly do alone what the two of us can do together." "I see what you mean, and like I said, I know I'm being a kid about it. But it's hard to know--it's not like he's a normal…uh, offspring. Our experiences are taken down to the--what'd you call it--"

"Particulate?"

"Particulate level and recombined, like DNA, and what comes out is…is there's no telling. You may get somebody completely unrecognizable as the product of these two people, or you may get a total half-and-half clone, or a clone of only one of 'em. I mean clone figuratively, you know."

"I know, my darling."

"He is a new person. Not all of us went to make him, any more than all of your possible DNA goes to make a kid. They may not inherit your tendency to gallstones or your green eyes, for example."

Bob smiled. "I'm following you. If you're going anywhere, that is."

"Just that…it's hard to know how to think of him, how to…treat him in my own head. I've been thinking of him as another guy--younger than me, more aristocratic, with style and grace--and erudition--I don't have. But I still love him, in spite of me."

"He worships you."

"He wants to give me a hug for my crappy childhood, is the feeling I'm getting, and compared to some people, my childhood wasn't all that crappy, so--"

"Remember he experiences those memories as his own, though he knows they're yours. Yes, he wants to comfort you. But he wants comfort for himself, too. He's a newborn with more experience than he knows what to do with, despite not having access to 'all of us', as it were. Some is in the preconscious; he has to be reminded, by his own thoughts or something else, to remember it. Some is in the subconscious where it will come out in dreams or behaviors, both of which ways would allow them through only in obscure, inexplicable ways, with no discernible relation to what the memory might actually be. It's fortunate for him that not all of us was necessary--our conscious minds, certainly, our conscious memories, but the rest has been…hidden, or distributed according to intensity, most likely. He'd be a basket case otherwise."

"I'm…really fucking glad Megare knew what she was doing when you talk about this stuff, Bob."

"As are we all," Bob sighed. "I know there were places during the operation, times when she held the procedure at a certain level to communicate with us, ask us if we were still comfortable enough to continue. I don't remember those times, any more than you do; but I do know Megare would never have continued if we hadn't said yes."

"'Course not. So, you're saying we got nobody to blame but ourselves, and he may blow us both away in too many ways to name, but he's still our kid and we gotta love him?"

Bob laughed. "That's one way of putting it. I would have said, he is our responsibility--Megare only offered us the option--and we have an obligation to give him the benefit of the doubt, accept his love wholeheartedly, and give him ours in the same spirit. Because we can do that--we do love him. If we didn't, it would be our obligation to keep him from finding out."

"That would suck. I know he's not an actual child, but it would still suck."

"I have to agree."

"Yeah…you were a kid, too, a long, long time ago."

Bob sighed. "Yes. I was." He said nothing else. Harry, knowing what there was to think about the topic of Bob's childhood, but not knowing just what Bob was thinking about it right now, let him be, and began to compose a letter in his head to write down later for Eryl, to leave for him to find when he woke up.

It also occurred to him breakfast might be nice, so he kissed Bob, receiving a distracted smile in response, and got up to do something about food. As he did so, his hand kept wandering to his cheek. Did Bob maybe see enough of that look on Eryl that he decided he'd like it on Harry? They were gonna have to have a talk, if so. Harry went habitually stubbly because he thought his mouth made him look like a girl, and while he loved female people, he was not one. Plus it tended to attract the sort of men who couldn't take their eyes off it and made him think of banjo music.

But if it was giving Bob's pale, sensitive skin beardburn and he just hadn't been complaining about it--until now, when it shouldn't have mattered; huh, maybe something to do with the topic of conversation-- he could grow it long enough to avoid that, without going for the full beard; the hairs were soft, like his body hair, once they had even a little length.

"My darling?"

"Yeah?" Harry turned, with the small automatic smile he often got when Bob called him that.

"Clothes, Harry. We won't be here forever. You are beyond lovely, but we mustn't get used to being able to freely wander naked all the time. Especially not outside."

"Clothes, huh? How's this?" Harry was suddenly dressed in a deceased olive-drab Henley and a pair of painter's pants that looked like they'd been white about eight years ago.

"God. How can you complain so bitterly of Eryl's grace and beauty in your body, and then deliberately do that to yourself?"

"He's him, I'm me, I'm learning to live with the idea. Besides, I told you, I'd feel like an uptight straight guy in a tutu if I tried to dress like him."

"But you don't deny he is attractive in his usual wardrobe? Other than just the tights?"

"I think he looks like a cat burglar--that outfit yesterday anyway, with the black leggings and the tight black sweater that came down to his hips? I'm blaming you for the black. Your side of the family. And those boots, too--soft glove leather should not be made into knee-high boots. They fit his legs like nylon stockings."

"They're designed to give his feet and ankles freedom should he need his swordplay footwork."

"They make him look like he's trying to get picked up, especially with the rest of that outfit."

"Are you sure you're not still jealous?"

"I never said I was jealous. Just…vain. And I'm through being vain. Eryl is a babe. I can live with this fact. I am in love with this fact." He threw out his arms in exuberance with his acceptance. "I am not a babe, and I can live with that fact, too."

"However you define that particular term, perhaps you are, perhaps not. But you are beautiful. Even dressed in rags."

Harry dropped his arms and leaned against the doorjamb. "You look pretty good in that sheet."

"Are you especially hungry?"

"Not yet." Harry grinned and pushed himself away from the door, heading back to the bed.

"Harry, darling. Clothes."

The "clothes"--such as they were--were gone when Harry climbed on top of Bob. "And just for you, I'm leaving the stubble gone."

"You're so thoughtful of me."

"Yeah. For example." He jerked the sheet down and away from both of them, then slid down Bob's body, nuzzling all the way.

Bob let out a long moan-sigh. "I doubt Eryl could do this the way you can."

Harry snickered. "You could ask him and find out."

"Two of you would kill me completely. Besides…currently, I can't think of any way to work that."

"Uh, me neither. Never mind." Harry moved on to matters far more interesting to both of them.


	18. Chapter 18

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the characters and I don't own this story.

**_LOUD AND CLEAR! I DO NOT, HAVE NOT AND WILL NOT EVER OWN THIS STORY!_**

**This story is the property of Tang Guangzhen who was kind enough to give me permission to post this here. Any flames about that will be used to fry your ass.**

**Thank You**

* * *

"I remember, he tell me they windsurf," Megare said softly, over her steaming cup of tea/honey/juice relaxation potion. "Off Diamond Head. Death-defying. He does not need to learn that."

"Those are the sorts of things you do in dreams--they also do Olympic-style ice tobogganing and skydiving, plus a number of other insane activities neither of them would go near if there were any chance of actually being hurt. The problem was, apparently, that Harry wanted to learn something he planned to use while awake, not…suddenly give himself the ability to play the piano, or whatever; things that just happen in dreams. They go riding in Ireland all the time, but Harry wanted Bob to try to teach him something very physical and dangerous, planning to use the knowledge thus gained in waking life, and that was what Bob was refusing. Harry's pouting just a bit, but there are still a million theoretical things he can learn that won't hurt him if he screws them up--well, won't hurt him badly, at least, especially if Bob is with him when he tries them."

"Still think it might work for other physical stuff. Less deadly."

"Possibly needlepoint. I just wouldn't try it with riding. Horses are very…high up, once you get up there, and they have minds of their own. It's very easy to die or be permanently crippled due to a fall from a horse that simply jumps because he's been bitten by a fly, or he's lunged to the side to avoid a hole in the trail that the rider doesn't spot. It's because when you fall, you slide first, trying to hang on, and when you do finally fall that last drop like a rock, you're head-down. It only takes a few feet to kill you if you hit right, and off a horse, the odds are high that you will."

"Why not just jump?"

"You've never ridden?" he asked, his brow furrowing.

She got a rather bizarre smirk. "Horses…like me, we talk well, but…to get on their backs and tell them what to do…" she shook her head. "Rude."

"I see," he said, smiling now. "Well, the reason you don't simply jump is you can't get your opposite leg over that fast--you're falling; it simply can't be done so fast if the saddle's properly fit, and if it's not, you won't be up there long. That's why you have to hold on with your legs and ass all the time, which is why one gets saddlesore, and also why it takes something like rowing, or similar--something that involves a lot of lunging, like swordfighting and other martial arts--to develop the buttocks and legs anything like as powerfully. One's seat is also how the horse knows whether he's dealing with someone who knows how to ride, or with some idiot he's going to have to try not to dump off every time he takes a corner. More likely he'll simply dump you and get it over with, because there's not much he can do to catch you if you don't know what you're doing."

"Mm. Still, I would not try to learn needlepoint dreaming either, if you value your fingers."

"Shuffleboard?"

She chuckled. "I can see why they kept on, doing that, the dreaming, even after the skull went and they can touch," she sighed. "Must be very fun. Do anything you want, nobody's neck broken."

"There are certain advantages concerning soreness, or rather the avoidance of it, as well," Eryl muttered, and coughed. "And recovery time. And no, I've never done it, either, but I have their memories of it--I try to imagine actually being there--no, not there--" Megare cackled as he slapped her with his napkin. "I mean…falling through the sky at two thousand feet, waiting for the right moment to pull your chute…just having such complete control in a dream, where everything, every sense and detail, seemed perfectly real. Actually, it wouldn't take much to prompt all kinds of odd things happening between them with that going on, sharing such a thing in Harry's brain."

"Harry's busy brain."

"Indeed, quite busy." Eryl sighed.

"You are worried," she said softly.

"Bob knows more about this than any of us, for what reason I forbear to ask. He believes that Harry is not in danger. I believe that Harry is an idiot, however, and that he will find some way to trigger a brain aneurysm when we teleport the distance we expect to. Or during an enteric firefight. Something."

"That is Harry talking," she said, smiling a little. "He is afraid he will ruin things, so you are afraid he will ruin things."

"Or perhaps…perhaps he's just afraid. And so am I."

"Harry? I do not think so. Or if he is afraid, it is for you and Bob. You all depend on his brain right now."

"I'll admit…I'm terrified myself, to think what long-term effects this all may have on Harry…"

She shook her head. "Possession victims have been rescued many years after they were first taken. Once they have their feet back, they are fine."

"Don't try to tell me that any of this is anything like anything at all that has gone before, at least not that anyone at all knows about," Eryl demanded, threatening her with his teaspoon for emphasis.

"I tell you nothing," she said, holding her hands up and away from her in a "no fight" gesture. "You are right. This is new."

Cruachan barreled out of the fireplace. They were getting used to tracking him by various signs that would look like either nothing, or inexplicable mayhem about the room, to most people. Being wizards didn't hurt anything, either; they could actually see more of him, whatever was available in these dimensions at a given moment to see, than a normal human.

He bounded up to the table. "I have completed my examination of your new door, Wizard Megare," he boomed. "I find no fault with it. You and Wizard Eryl have done as thorough a job as one of my own people could have. We must now test the field which will keep me present in these dimensions for the jump."

"Are you sure--"

"I have undergone similar procedures--during my moving sleep, for example. This is a new method, but I have been 'pinned' in a defined set of dimensions before. That will not harm me; it is the field itself I fear I cannot completely reassure you about."

"Yes, so we test, before your life depends on it working for you--" she inhaled and exhaled, in what looked like a practiced cleansing breath, and said "We are to work, then."

They left their tea things on the small rolling table and headed for the lab. They were all silent, Eryl and Megare in thought, and Cruachan presumably because he had nothing to say. If he did, he'd say it; they knew that much about him by now.

In the lab, Cruachan unhesitatingly--his eyes were visible at the moment--went to the table where a large crystal pendant lay. He waited, and both Eryl and Megare looked it over yet again, making it sparkle and turn and coruscate and flash colored fire.

"I find nothing out of place," Megare said.

Eryl sighed. "Me neither. You're sure the chain is long enough, Cruachan?"

"It is as long as the chain of my translation device. That will be long enough."

"Very well." As the red, slanted eyes gazed at them, somehow managing to convey expectancy, they looked at each other, Megare and Eryl, and Megare took a breath, focused, and turned to drop the chain over where the part of Cruachan's head that would be physically present should be, if the eyes were any indicator.

They both stumbled backward. Cruachan looked much the same as he did in the dimness, where he was easier to see as a shape made of darkness; the light in the lab was low for that reason--but trapped in the dimensions humans knew, he was a lot bigger. Normally double the size of a large wildcat, or perhaps the size of a very small jaguar, he was now about the size of a tiger, but with a hump on his back similar to a bison's, a bigger head with even worse teeth, and claws similarly enlarged and present on all four feet.

He drew his lips back--Gods and spirits, those teeth. He was still mostly visible as a darkness, not so much a dark creature. He snarled. Eryl and Megare stood firm, both of them wussing royally on the inside.

"Interesting!" Cruachan opined, and his boom could have knocked over a semi, and did knock the two wizards into the counter behind them. Cruachan's tail was thrashing back and forth across the lab in an unreassuring fashion, only by chance not destroying the place, as it could obviously have mown down whatever might have been inanimate or stupid enough to be in its path. "I cannot, however, perform many of the acts that I can when in my natural form, of course."

Both still trying to hide the fact that they were too scared to shit properly over it, Eryl and Megare began making the necessary noises--feel okay? Any problems? Anything beyond a "hemmed-in" sensation, he should report, etc.

"I feel, as you say, oddly…focused, into a single tiny…imagine if you were to--for a moment--have your person reduced to the size of a grapefruit. Assume no pain and no damage. That is what it is like. Tolerable; as I said, even interesting to a degree. But uncomfortable, and of course limiting, no?"

"Oh, definitely. I think our charm has passed the test, Megare--you needn't stand ready any longer. Cruachan, if you'd…ah, just…lean down…"

"Oh, of course--I am, from your perspective, 'taller'. I am quite fascinated by the topological mechanics relevant between--my apologies, Wizard Eryl," he cut himself off, noticing Eryl with his hands raised ready to receive the field generator. Cruachan apparently leaned down, and Eryl managed to get his hands on the glittering chain, and pulled. He wasn't sure if he was pulling in quite the right direction, but because of the hugely humpbacked effect, Cruachan's head now pointed downward, and so long as he cooperated, it wasn't necessary to see anything but the chain properly to get the pendant off.

The huge, shadowy thing vanished, and Cruachan, in his normal form, reappeared, shifting blackly about, eyes, teeth and claws all in evidence. He boomed "Aaah, much better! I'm glad I won't have to wear that thing long. I would be very limited in what I could do to aid and protect Wizard Eryl were I forced to wear it constantly."

"Not so much as you think," Eryl said shakily, "but you would attract a great deal of unwanted attention. We'll rig something up so that you can carry it easily without activating it by putting it on--will a pouch do? To place it in? Unless the chain itself's around some part of you, it won't activate."

"That will be fine. I'm quite used to my little translation pentacle--thank you again, Wizard Megare," he added. "The weight will not even be noticeable."

"Good. I will get. You wait." Megare turned and ran away. Eryl completely didn't blame her. If he'd also known where to look for a small, neck-hangable bag, they would have logjammed in the lab doorway. That this was Cruachan, for pete's sake, didn't seem to make much difference--there was an instinctive reaction to the snarling sound of a large great cat, which was the first noise the giganto-tiny Cruachan had made, and they were reacting in spades.

He sat down on a stool near the counter to wait with Cruachan. What the hell, at least his pants were dry. But oh, dear--Megare's urethra was only two inches long and it pointed almost straight down, unlike his, which had over a foot, and an upswing before heading down, to call its own. He hoped Megare hadn't bolted because she was in need of a change of trousers.

* * *

"Remember, it does no good to meddle with beeper," she said, pressing it into his hand. "I will know, and come. If you lose, I come. If you signal, I come. If you throw away, I come." She put on a sepulchral voice and waved her clawing-finger hands about with an air of creepiness. "I am Megare of the Doors of Spacetime! Not to mess with me, please!" She made Theremin noises, like the ones in old monster movies, and his tears spilled over as his eyes crinkled in a heartfelt laugh. He pulled her close one more time, flexing the wrist the beeper band was around, but she was still talking. "And remember to change my signature--I have ridden of most of it, but you must disguise when you cross, or my work may be recognized. I will know. If you do not--"

"You will come," Eryl finished for her. "I think I've got the general idea there, amica sine fraude."

"When you are all there safe, all is well, find a place to beep, only once. I will know it means it is good. If you do not, after fifteen minutes, I will come. If you beep more than once, I will come."

He mouthed the words "I will come" with her, but didn't make a sound, and she air-slapped his cheek, and he grinned again.

"I am not away from you," she whispered softly, the air-slap turning to a stroke of his smooth cheek, her thumb just brushing a red lower lip. "I am there in the beeper. I can be with you in less than a minute. And I am always with you here." She touched his head, then stroked down his hair where she'd touched.

He gazed at her, his eyes starting to fill again, and she stepped back quickly. "Go. Go now!" She began barking it like a drill sergeant, half-snarling, "Go, go, go, go--"

Cruachan, at least, responded to that at once, and lumbered his squished-expanded form through the enormous circle that glowed in simple blue splendor on the wall, filled with the shifting nothingness of a vertigo-reducing curtain; after that, Eryl had no choice but to close his eyes, turn and follow after, as Cruachan would need him quickly on the other side.  
He did take a sudden step down that staggered him, but it was only about six inches; one stumble and, in his flexible traction-sole glove-boots, he had his footing back. He was wearing what Harry called his cat-burglar clothes--he'd designed the outfit to be invisible in the darkness, but still something one might reasonably wear in the light, or even at night--turning the black into a look, with the long, tight-knit but stretchy, vertically lined turtleneck over the snug leggings. His sword--and the undetectably falsified permit to carry it and his poignard; Harry could falsify nearly any permit he had to, though he never did, but Eryl lacked those particular scruples--would make it more believable yet. It looked like an outfit designed to allow freedom of movement, and the sword and main-gauche gave that a purpose besides stalking quietly about in the dark. He'd had to work at a couple of the black leather carrying harnesses that strapped to the torso to make the leather ungleaming and soft, almost greyish rather than black by the time he got done with it. The buckles had been easy to paint matte black. The poignard hung at his right hip, bottom end of the sheath strapped to his lower thigh; the sword was scabbarded across his back.

He also carried a large pack full of things designed to help him set up a temporary and untraceable headquarters somewhere--it was certain he couldn't hope to go to Harry's apartment.

He set down the pack and looked around; they were in a particularly unsavory-looking Chicago alley that Eryl recognized as being Not-Exactly-Gold-Coast, but far enough from Harry's place that the automated and living magical watchers that doubtless permeated that area would probably miss him. "Nice shooting," he murmured. "Cruachan?"

"'Behind' you."

Eryl spun, and a monster pair of red eyes glowered right in his face. He bit off a bad word, lived through a couple of seconds of bradychardia while refusing to pee right here, and said "Let's get…cough uh, let's get that field generator off."

"Please do," Cruachan boomed in his Death-Star Planet-Buster boom, and Eryl reached for the chain he could see glittering. Cruachan didn't feel totally unfurry--but it also felt as though one was trying to feel fur through numbed hands; no more specific tactile detail was available.

"Here is the pouch, Wizard Eryl--thank you," Cruachan sighed as Eryl hastily dropped the crystal and chain into the dark grey suede bag. Cruachan was now only booming his usual boom, from somewhere just below Eryl's hips. The way he made himself heard, one shouldn't be able to identify the location of the origin of his voice, but the hell with that, apparently; one could, anyway.

"How do you feel?" Eryl murmured.

"Quite well. It is true; in that particular negotiation of spacetime, there is no time involved in the transition. The intervening space is made not to exist, as though the dimension of depth were simply removed, between two specific locations. I must make a study of it. It is quite different from the methods of travel around and through and between that I am familiar with."

"Yes, I'd say it is, but I'd say Megare got the ideas for it the same place you did, just a little farther east." He raised his head and looked around. "Well, amica sine fraude--" he touched the silver band around his wrist under his sleeve; it lay flush with his arm. He pulled the sleeve back and concentrated, saw a tiny glitter and felt a tiny tingle. It was almost disappointing, though he'd been the one to make the point that when it had activated, it should signal him it had done so in some way that wouldn't bring the matter up to anyone else, even if he were in a crowd. "Here I am," he whispered, and heard so much emotion in those neutral little words he almost kicked himself for oversentimentality. "Safe and sound. Thank you." He pulled his sleeve down over the plain little band again.

He knew Bob and Harry were all right, because right now he was them--their primariest personality components, at any rate, sort of in kit form; but the same as before. Still, his first order of business was to establish his temporary headquarters and run a few simple healing and diagnostic spells to make sure all was really well with him, Harry, and Bob. He'd need to take a nap as part of the check, but he could, this once, use a spell that would knock him right into the level of sleep that most suited Bob and Harry's being up and about. He wouldn't be aware of it--wouldn't actually exist--for the time, but he'd remember it when he woke. The fact that he would need sleep--couldn't risk going without it and using compensatory measures--was one reason he was glad he'd overcome Harry's worry and brought Cruachan. There was nothing like having a good--and capably deadly--friend watching over you while you slept, no matter how many alarm bells you set, which, of course, he still intended to set.

* * *

"Is this not a sanctuary of the White Christ?"

"It was," Eryl said, smiling a little. "Call me superstitious. In any case, now it's a squat. I'm actually surprised you recognized it; the Christians in Ancient Ireland were monastic, and the cross wasn't commonly used."

"Do you think it wise to share quarters with transients? They are usually fairly desperate people."

"Perhaps we can make them a little less desperate. They'll never even know we're here, anyway. Stay invisible and follow me. If there's a spirit here already, let me know; churches and such often have them."

"There are. Mostly they are involved with their own concerns, but there is a resident hobgoblin--it lives, rather than in a hob, beneath what I suspect was a platform for an altar. If I may, I will go speak with it and locate you afterward."

"That'll be fine. You'll have no trouble finding me; I'm heading for the bell tower. We won't have to gently move anyone out of there; it's much too far to climb for no reason, for someone who's weakened by living in the elements, hunger, and sometimes drug addiction. I suppose there may be some very young people who'd be attracted to it, but we'll just have to see. We will definitely, however, have to relocate a massive amount of bird and bat droppings. Right up your alley."

Cruachan took this perfectly seriously, because it was right up his alley. "Indeed. I will speak with the resident hearth imp while you set up the necessary warding. I hope you do not intend to climb all those stairs?"

"No, no, of course not. There'd never be time for that sort of thing, if the situation turns…hectic; you know what I mean. I'll leave a standing spell so lightweight I doubt even Mai would think it was anything but a leftover ghost trail. It should transport you too, if you should need it for some reason."

"That will be convenient, if I become worn or confused in a new building. I will meet you in the tower."

Eryl felt him go, though there was nothing to see, since he'd already gone invisible. Eryl wasn't; they were coming in through the back of the large church, through rooms which were so stuffed with dust, old cardboard and trash that none of the squatters had staked out the space. He continued silently through what used to be a large storage closet with doors at both ends, and came out next to the door of the stairs to the bell tower.

He hadn't checked, but the bell tower was large enough that he had figured the stairs would wind around the square chamber with space left in the middle of them; they would have been irritating to negotiate if the tower had been so narrow there wasn't enough space for a body to move straight up and down in the center. Cobwebs and dust were ubiquitous; but if he looked straight up, even without any magical augmentation of his sight, he could see light shining through the windows of the tower.

He stepped into the center of the room and laid a hand on his poignard, closed his eyes, and murmured softly for a moment, and his feet left the floor easily as he began to rise. This first time, setting up the spell, he did so slowly, probably no faster than he could have walked up the stairs.

He'd been able to see the light in the tower chamber, of course, because there was no trapdoor; he just rose through the space where it had been, tied off the distance of the spell, and began to step over onto the floor, which he'd already determined was solid; it was covered, however, with an also-solid layer he wasn't all that thrilled with the notion of stepping on, or having any other kind of contact with, for that matter. It was a hardened morass of various species' end products, mixed with feathers, nesting materials, and the occasional small dead creature.

The pigeons and other birds now slept, with occasional shuffling or soft trilling, overhead. He didn't see any need to disturb them; the spell he intended to raise would protect the small open-sided room--now lacking the huge bell that had lived in its center--from anything else that issued from the birds or any bats who might now be out hunting the local insect population.

"Goddess," Cruachan muttered, popping up behind Eryl, who was still floating over the trapdoor. "Shall we perhaps simply set it afire?"

Eryl chuckled. "No, we shall not. Do your stuff, Cruachan, it's easy for you."

"Would you mind blocking sound for my first effort? It might be necessary. Just for the tower."

Eryl tilted his head to the side, eyes unfocusing, and said "It's done. You wouldn't really set the place on fire for being filthy, would you? There are hearth-imp instincts, and there's psychopathology."

"Of course not. I just thought it sounded…satisfying." The house spirit turned into a wavering that covered the entire floor; Eryl obligingly lifted his feet a bit higher to keep them clear of any…whatever, that might overlap into the trapdoor area, and it turned out it was a good thing he did. The dried guano came up, pried loose in sheets, each one sounding a gunshot, and shoved--all at the same time, in a scraping, rumbling pile--to the center of the room and through the trapdoor. It vanished--Eryl could almost hear a cartoon "falling" whistle--to crash into an explosion of crap on the bottom floor of the tower.

"You--!" Eryl burst out laughing. "Now you're only going to have to clean that up!"

"But it was satisfying," Cruachan said, reassembling enough to manifest eyes and a needle-sharp grin; he then swooped gracefully, going by the visible parts and the rushing air, through the trapdoor and down. Eryl quickly stepped to the newly-clean--and devarnished--floor, and devoted himself to calming the pigeons and their winged brethren before the poor frantic things could crap the place up again.

* * *

Harry smacked the side of the TV again. "Dammit."

Bob wandered in behind him. "I didn't know that was in here."

"It wasn't; and apparently the fact that electronic things blow up and die around me is so ingrained in my head that I can't make the thing work. See what you can do."

"I doubt I'll fare much better…"

"You don't destroy electronics by walking past them. You used to kind of garble them up sometimes, but they'd usually recover when you left. Now, you might not even do that."

"More likely," Bob said, as Harry moved away from the TV and Bob leaned down and began adjusting knobs. It was like trying to bring in the reception, circa 1968. "--I'll make things blow up. It is you who's the influence in my projection now."

"Um. Yeah, maybe."

The horizontal weirdness suddenly snapped to stability as Bob hit the right wavelengths.

"I wonder why he gave us this archaic thing, if I'm still not going to be able to make it work."

"Possibly he didn't. If I'd found it, it might have been a scrying bowl, or a mirror. Possibly a crystal ball, but only if he did it as a joke."

"I wish it were a scrying bowl. Those, I don't blow up. Hey, it's color."

The colors, which hadn't been evident in the interference and wonky reception, were too perfect even for a plasma TV; they seemed more to be looking into some kind of scrying device, three dimensions, no detail loss…it looked like one of Megare's "windows".

"The stuff this guy can do," Harry muttered. "Not that I'm surprised at the picture, I'm surprised it took him no time to figure out a way to--where the hell is that?"

"It looks like the night view of a city, from a high building…"

"Wait, I recognize it. Well, what I recognize…" he pointed. "There, see that? That's an old grain elevator, older than that whole part of town, that somebody turned into a rave house. What do you suppose…hey, there's Cruachan! Hi, guy."

"Hello, Wizard Dresden."

Harry blinked, then laughed. "He's interactive."

"Indeed I am. I am, in fact, Cruachan."

"Wait a second. He'd have to be…"

"Perhaps Cruachan would explain if we asked," Bob said softly.

"Of course, Wizard of Bainbridge. If you will…" the view panned down, and the light became brighter, but softer and more golden--candles, perched here and there around. The floor was covered with thick rugs of different patterns; spellworking equipment and unguessable bundles and satchels were scattered randomly around with the candles. The "camera"--what the hell, think of it as a camera, it was serving the same function even if it didn't work anything like one--panned around to settle on Eryl; he was apparently out like a light, lying on some stacked rugs with a fleecy one rolled under his head. The camera panned around and behind him, focusing on his back, shoulders, finally neck, where something was glowing.

"Oh, dear," Bob murmured.

"What?" said Harry.

The camera came closer, and the glowing was revealed as being caused by a long string of small symbols, half-hidden in the curls at the base of Eryl's--Harry's--skull. They pulsed softly.

"I'm not sure the exact route he's taking to do it, but I know what he's doing," Bob said. "Cruachan--tell me, is there…perhaps, something floating about, a little object, that--"

"He is using a crystal from a small photographing telescope, in order to take what he called a 'fish-eye' view, and refine it."

Harry smacked his forehead. "Eryl!"

Bob added "Indeed. Blast the boy for having such ingenuity; it works, but...I'm not pleased to be the source of the information he used to invent the method. Cruachan, is he…"

"He--or rather, Harry, at the moment--is quite well. Eryl wished to perform a status check to make sure neither of you suffered any damage; we arrived in Chicago by teleportation about two hours ago. He knew where he was going here in the city--"

"So did we, but you got that close? That was some fancy shooting."

"That is what Wizard Eryl said. Wizard Megare is very adept."

"No shit she is. So you guys are in that old St. Agatha's?"

"In the bell tower. We are surrounded by a shield that Eryl believes will not be detected as a spell at all, by virtue of his clever use of the constantly renewed traces and trails of the various spirits in residence, and with the assistance of the resident hobgoblin. Also, there is a very subtle healing spell in operation, beginning to move through the building's live inhabitants; human, and some other species. I believe Wizard Eryl would have set this spell in any event, but it will have the effect of both soothing and energizing the building's transient population. Their auras will be of assistance, as will, unfortunately, a certain amount of drug use."

"Yeah, I bet they have people flying around that place regularly," Harry murmured. "Okay, so his weather-and-everything-else shield is protecting you guys, fine. Is this gonna happen again? I don't like what Eryl's doing. I wouldn't even know what he was doing if it weren't for the fact I can remember it from Bob through Eryl, and it's still making me squirm."

"He suspected you would feel that way, and that the Wizard of Bainbridge might also. He wished me to remind you that what he is doing is voluntary, harmless, and to 'himself'. It might be a spell usable in certain black magic operations, but the spell itself is not black, nor harmful provided the caster does not use it to harm. He wishes to remind you that if the Wizard of Bainbridge had not bypassed your inactive--against him, at any rate--defenses and entered your mind, which would ordinarily be seen as a hostile act under any circumstances because of the extremely high danger to the invaded if the invader chooses to use his access in a certain manner--"

Harry cut him off. "I get it, I get it. Boy, I bet the Bob part of him had fun with that thought. What an 'I told you so'."

"The Bob part of him is having fun with it now, at least," Bob said, smiling at him sideways.

"Hey, Cru--did he happen to remember that once he was unconscious and I was aware, that body would--not that it matters that much, since it's unconscious--be mine?"

"Yes. He wished me to remind you that there is now no one present, or who could detect his own presence, who could do anything damaging to the body you share, and he knows you will understand why he has complete faith in his shield, his alarms, and myself."

"Yeah," Harry sighed. "I understand. Are Bob and I going back to dreamland pretty soon?"

"No; you and Bob will become Eryl in a little while. He will sleep at the time normal for him, during the day here. He mentioned that this sort of communication, as it occurred, would function as one kind of alarm, among other things--as it gives you, the two wizards who comprise him, access to information from the outside world in 'real time'."

"It apparently doesn't give us any way to interact with that world," Harry said again. Bob was gazing pensively at the sleeping form on the left of the screen; Cruachan was sitting in front of Eryl, semi-visible, the various shadows in the picture coming together to crate a Picassolike almost-portrait.

Cruachan said "He suggested that, should it come to it--'tell them to try. It can't hurt'."

"He knows better than that," Bob said. "He has to, because I do."

"He meant it couldn't hurt to ask, I am fairly sure. I believe he knows that you would, in fact, be able to effect change…"

"Bob, didn't you say once that if control were left up for grabs when we slept…"

"…we would…sleepwalk," Bob said, blinking. "My, my, my. That is true, isn't it?"

Harry pondered. "I'm still not sure what I think about trying to cast through an unconscious body. Is it possible to cast in your sleep?"

"It is indeed, though I've taught you only about the dangers of it--why a wizard's nightmares or delirium are so dangerous. With precise enough control, it can be done. I don't recommend--if, as Cruachan said, it should come to needing to try--that we actually move your body; we've shown ourselves to be less than competent even together. Only you could do it effectively, and that might…affect my own status here." He might get tossed out on his bum, which would leave him with nowhere to go if the bond to Harry were broken, thus 'releasing' him from the curse, which occurance he no longer wanted. "But we could simply use it for the sort of casting done internally, as most of Mai's is done; one only knows she's casting, if one doesn't happen to be able to sense the particular casting, because the result appears."

"And only one of us at a time better cast."

"Oh, definitely."

"Cru, this is obviously two-way communication. Where are you hearing and seeing us from?" Harry said.

"I am not seeing you, precisely. However, I can see what carries my voice to you, and yours to me. It is a sound crystal, one designed to give a ghost not equipped with a curse such as the Wizard of Bainbridge's a voice if it should desire to speak, but has not the necessary energy. It is connected via sympathetic symbol to the main sequence, part of which is visible on Wizard Dresden's head and neck."

"I wonder how it's picking us up. God, bare synapse activity? How the hell could a sound crystal read brain activity that precisely?"  
"We'll have to concentrate on Eryl's memories a little more closely," Bob murmured, "or he's going to keep making us feel like incompetents."

"That is not his intention, I assure you, Wizard of Bainbridge."

"I know, Cruachan," Bob assured him. "Is he well, otherwise?"

"So it would appear. This was the last check he needed to do, the largest part of which he left to me--I am to determine whether you are functioning normally. You appear to be. Does it seem so to you?"

"We're fine, Cru. Tell Eryl we're good. Or don't tell him; he'll probably remember as soon as he wakes up, if this is just a nap to make sure we're fine."

"Then I will wake him as he has instructed me. It is good to hear your voices."

"It's good to talk to you too, Cruachan. Give Eryl our love. Tell him to be careful."

"He will remember that too, but I will tell him anyway. We will speak again soon." The TV flashed off.

"Here we go," Harry said, taking Bob's hand, squeezing his fingers once. Bob smiled at him and squeezed back, just as Harry's perception of himself and his surroundings started to change.

* * *

Eryl shifted a little on the thick rugs; he smiled, and his eyelids fluttered a little; the spell was making him drowsy, still. He'd've slept longer if Cruachan hadn't wakened him. "I remember. They're fine."

"Nevertheless, I promised to convey their love and their wish that you take care, so consider it done," Cruachan said. "I have been turning the bathroom off the kitchen toward usefulness--I learned a great deal at Wizard Megare's house. Where did all these rugs and candles come from?"

"They're mostly conjured. I wouldn't think you'd have learned how to repair a regular toilet, and I'm just almost certain Megare's not on municipal water."

"I did not learn only from the work I did. There is a wealth of information available to Wizard Megare that is not in her library. One only requires the ability to access it."

"Wait--she didn't show me, or Harry or Bob, anything like what you're describing."

"You could not have used it. Wizard Dresden nearly did himself harm in such an attempt."

"Oh, that sort of thing. No, I remember that what Harry saw was indecipherable to him anyway. Bob, though…well, it was just as well, no more than they knew about his new and improved projection. I also remember…the pad, that it seemed laden with meaning, but that meaning…it was a bit like an English speaker who doesn't speak German, staring at German. It almost looks understandable, as if you'd be able to read it if you just kept at it long enough…"

"She did say that Wizard Dresden was 'different' in his reaction to her interfacing device."

"Yes. She did. Well, I'm glad you were so industrious; a functioning bathroom will spare me some trouble. Thank you."

"It is my nature, Wizard Dresden. And the resident imp, who is…not as able as I am, is grateful."

"I'm sure it is. I'll have to soundward the area of the bathroom, though. Very well…" he glanced around, and the candles went out; he stood carefully, alert for drowsiness, but he felt thoroughly alert. "…I'll go do that, and then I'm going to scan around a bit, see what's in the area that we might have to avoid, and what we might be able to use if we have to."

"I will accompany you."

"That'll be fine, but if you'd rather rest a bit--I know you do have a sort of slow period, even though you don't actually sleep--"

"I will rest when you do, Wizard Eryl. I am quite fit for now."

"Well, good. Let's go, then."


	19. Chapter 19

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the characters and I don't own this story.

**_LOUD AND CLEAR! I DO NOT, HAVE NOT AND WILL NOT EVER OWN THIS STORY!_**

**This story is the property of Tang Guangzhen who was kind enough to give me permission to post this here. Any flames about that will be used to fry your ass.**

**Thank You**

* * *

A simple you-don't-see-me was enough to cover him from most observation. It wouldn't from magical observation, but he'd be aware enough of any such. True, some wizards might not, especially if the watcher in question were Mai, but he would.

He and Cruachan started strolling around in ever-increasing circles--strolling because Eryl was semi-detatched, searching, in methods more subtle and sensitive than the Charm of Aware Air.

He encountered nothing unexpected--because tunnel webs and such, keyed to Harry, were naturally expected; they couldn't catch Eryl unawares, and he could simply break the hold like a piece of raveled twine--it wouldn't appear as though anything had touched the sensing mechanism. Harry alone might have had a bit of a problem--he could've done it, but it would have taken work, and he might've alerted whoever set them. Bob--when alive--probably would simply have walked around them.

Strolling over a pedestrian bridge across a freeway at about two in the morning, he suddenly stopped.

Cruachan, controlling his boom so as not to make Eryl jump, said "What is it?"

"This signature. Magic was worked in this area, but not Wizard magic. Nor something more subtle, like a witch's. Nothing especially baleful about it…let me focus in a bit more…oh my."

Cruachan appeared as a shifting and red eyes. He was bouncing. "What?"

"This is the magical signature of a Drake."

"A Firedrake," Cruachan repeated for clarification.

"Yes; we usually just call them Drakes. Dragons, occasionally. There are many varieties of Dragon, most of them chthonic or otherwise not likely to encounter humans. But the one we're most concerned with is the most common one, the one we call Drakes. In their natural form, they're not all that large--for dragons, I mean. They truly walk upright, in terms of their pelvis construction, femur socketing, knee, ankle and foot development. And in other ways, too, they almost resemble dragon/human hybrids, such as the casual assumption of their superiority over all other species on the planet," he smirked.

Cruachan grinned.

Eryl went on "It isn't quite as apparent to look at them--though one is struck by a few things, such as the fact that they have naturally upright backs; shoulders and arms rather than forelegs; opposable digits--that kind of thing. They're proportional to humans in most dimensions, though larger. They can, however, shapeshift; they can be as large as they like if they have the power and a source of an acceptable sort of mass to draw on. It's only the brain and close aspects of the central nervous system that remain totally unchanged when they do that--they can also reduce their mass via spell, being magic workers as well as magical creatures. But they have no trouble shifting to human form."

"So, to refer to your earlier point, the Firedrakes are perfectely camouflaged…"

"From everyone but a wizard who is specifically on the lookout for them, yes. And if they work magic, in any form that requires a sudden outlay of energy--spellcasting, for example, as opposed to applying general ectenic or odylic, or more sublte pressure--the signature is recognizable."

"Is this the first you've found?"

"So far, but they can cover their tracks to a degree. I think I know why the Drakes are around and about--Mai, of course."

"She has ties with them?"

"Some people think she is one--Harry believes it, and Bob is on the fence about it--but I don't think she is. She could be an outcast of the Drakes; that's the only reason she would keep to a human form and consort largely with humans, abandoning Drake society for a powerful position in human magical society. It would explain why some Drakes might be after her blood, depending on the reason she was outcast--but as I said, I don't believe it. It's possible the one Drake was some sort of crank, attacking the heretic, but it's doubtful."

"Why do you say that?"

If she were an outcast, she would have been the target of a larger hunt, and she would not have risked moving Harry's building into the otherside darkness just to kill the one Drake. That is simply not something one does to do away with a stalker, even a dangerous one. But what convinces me most is that she was entirely sincere--Harry believes it--when she said that killing that Drake was more important than saving any of them, including herself. So she was concerned with more than her own life."

"Can you draw any conclusions from this information?"

"Not anything definitive, unfortunately, and we'll have to cut our walk short. We need more information. Let's go back to the belfry. I can do a scan from there that will tell me how many Drakes are in the vicinity; that's become more important than locating the traps set for Harry, since I'd bet you and I together can evade those even if they surprise us."

"I can carry you back there in a matter of moments, Wizard Eryl, if you will trust me, but you will likely not remember it. It will do you no harm."

"Um. If you could carry Megare, I suppose I'm willing to trust you."

"Please close your eyes and relax." Eryl did so, and the next thing he knew, he was shivering a little and blinking his eyes open on the pile of rugs in the belfry, surrounded by lit candles.

"You lit the candles…"

"I am a hearth imp," Cruachan sighed boomingly.

"Right, of course," Eryl said, holding up a placating hand. "Homely duties are your specialty. Well, you're right, I don't remember a thing. Now, let's get to scanning for Drakes, shall we?"

"In my time," Cruachan was saying, drifting idly about within the confines of the sheild--it extended just outside the half-wall that guarded the edge of the belfry--as Eryl shuffled around in packs and packages, pulling out a small black enameled bowl and setting it aside before he kept rummaging, "Most dragons had little interest in humans. They were simply another sentient species on the planet, like many other great apes and many cetaceans; but humans were best simply avoided, as they panicked easily. But what you call Firedrakes, in particular, considered humans a lower species. One which could be taught, of course, perhaps domesticated and enslaved for more dignified duties--those requiring intelligence and learning capability--but they are not above using humans as a food animal, when necessary. At least…not in my time."

"Not in this one, either," Eryl said, setting a number of small, clear, angular pebbles around the bowl. Next he went for a pack full of herbs that were sealed away from each other by plastic, wax and real tin foil. Bob's sense of smell picked out what he needed immediately. Harry would have had to label them, living, as he did, surrounded by blinding, violent artificial scents and tastes.

The herbs were mostly in powders; he took only a pinch of each, and spoke briefly to each pinch, eyes closed. He then dusted the bowl with the powder. Cruachan didn't disturb him while he was in the middle of this, but when he seemed done, at a midpoint, looking around for something else, the imp ventured "This will tell you where the Firedrake who left the signature is?"

"It should give me a lead on any Drakes in the area…all right." He held a hand over the bowl, and it began to fill with water--the water dripped from his hand, slowly at first, until it was a little trickle from each finger. Cruachan could feel the change in the humidity around them.

It didn't take much to fill the bowl. Eryl stopped the flow with a soft word, shook off his hand, and extinguished most of the lights, leaving only a single candle burning about a foot away from the bowl.

A domelike pattern of lines of blue light sprang up from the little crystals, rotating slowly over the bowl. Eryl gazed steadily at it. The pattern fluxed and changed.

"Not the only Drake," he whispered. "They're…everywhere. Disguised, but everywhere. Our white Council, and all the local Councils in Europe, are communicating about me, searching for me--or Bob and Harry. We knew that, of course, but…I think Mai may be almost alone in the area right now. I think that's why the Drakes are converging. I can't get a clear fix on Mai. She's near--as in, this area of the state--but I don't know if she's on the run or not. She could simply be about some business we know not wot of. She's…not in town. She's in the…countryside, if you can call it that here. There's a river near her. She must have been chased there--or she's there for her own reasons. I don't know. But there are Drakes, and I know they want Mai, and I know Mai and the white Councils all, here and elsewhere, want Bob and Harry. I think Mai is either alone or the next thing to it."

"Then…the Firedrakes would be our only problem."

Eryl glanced up. "I can handle one Firedrake at a time, and I may be the only human wizard who can. When they find that out, they'll be after me too. En masse."

"Then the best strategy is avoidance."

"True, but that may be difficult when we need to get to Mai. Unless…" he pondered. "I…am following a train of thought that leads me to believe that Mai will not hide from me. At least, she won't…if I do not approach her in a hostile fashion."

"With only your warning defenses up, no active ones?"

"When I reach her, my friend, my only defense outside of quick wit will be you. It's important she talk to us. Find out why…why she let Harry have custody of the skull, which Morgan would have counseled her against, with great fervor. Too many things don't fit, Cruachan. If I'm to retrieve the information we need, I fear I'll have to take a few serious chances. These Drake signatures are indicating that we are out of time."

"As you think best, of course, Wizard Eryl. You will then be needing my services as bodyguard?"

"Oh, yes--and as someone who can pinpoint the location of anybody in a particular building--not their identity perhaps, but that they exist. With your warnings, and assistance in dispatching those warned against, I'll be able to turn more of my effort to other things. One question--do you think you can render a person…inoperable, without causing dangerous or lasting harm?"

"Certainly. I have done that often, dispatching intruders and those who had designs on my family or its goods, whom I did not believe deserved death or serious injury. I can either immobilize them or render them unconscious. I cannot guarantee that those I render unconscious might not be injured or ill as a result; I cannot even guarantee they will not die if there is a weakness present in them of which I am unaware. And if I immobilize them, I will be at least partially occupied with keeping them that way. But I need not kill outright."

"That's something, that's a very good thing. If you can even locate for me whatever guards Mai has--they're likely simple mercenaries, for the purpose of guarding her from human threats and acting as a warning barrier between her and other sorts of threat--I won't have to turn my energy and attention to locating them before I distpatch with them, if you can't. Remember, we don't know what we're going up against, but a great many of the wizards competent to search for a Wizard like Harry and/or Bob are out doing so. Mai may be on her own, or likely with Morgan."

"How do you know Mai is near, and not out searching?"

"She would never leave her own territory when she had compentent underlings to do the job, as well as connections to the European Councils in question; they all want the same thing, after all--me. They fear Bob profoundly, and they know his status has changed, but that he has not died completely, which wouldn't necessarily be good for them anyway. Only Megare's help made it impossible for them to track me down, either whiel I was with Megare, or coming home. As far as Mai being here--leaving your territory is a good way to lose your position. Also, there are all these Drake signatures. She's here."

"Of course."

He sighed. "Dawn is fairly close. I suppose we should lie low for a while. I don't want Mai detecting my attempts to find her; she may or may not be expecting me, in general, but I don't want her fully prepared when we finally come upon her. She can be surprisingly human if you catch her at least partially off guard."

"As you think best, of course. If you will sleep, I will keep watch."

"Won't you rest?"

"I will--but I can do that and stand guard simultaneously, in case you've forgotten."

"Sorry, sometimes I do. You're…atypical. Which I like about you."

"Thank you."

"I think that rather than using magic to take care of the problem, I'll avail myself of the bathroom you returned to working order, and clean up in general with a spell when I wake."

"I will be here."

* * *

As he slept, there was another angel watching over him.

"You dumbshit," sighed the angel. Angels could see the patterns that led to and from the past, and the patterns that led to the future; they had the information. There is no chaos to an angel.

Tameriel sighed, and started, within the limits of what she thought she could get away with, planning--and as far as what she could get away with went, being a Duke of the Second Hour didn't hurt.

* * *

"Well, I suppose that settles that," Eryl said, glancing around. "Either we've been quite thoroughly deflected, or Mai is even farther out than we thought." It was late afternoon, heading for early evening; there was a bluish cast to the light, which was diffused by a thick layer of low stratus clouds.

Cruachan was off investigating the area somewhere; he returned in time to catch the last statement. "There is a large structure past that densely wooded area."

"There's nothing there but an old power…plant…" Eryl blinked. "Of course. Obviously, we can't teleport directly there. Can you carry me?"

"I suppose. I have never had to carry a mass such a distance, but there is no reason I should not be able to."

"That's rather a large if."

"I would not allow harm to come to you, Wizard Eryl."

"Of course not. All right, let's give it a try."

When Eryl came to, he was lying on concrete. It had to be concrete; nothing else but solid diamond and cooled lava flows were this hard. A maze of pipework and metal struts, grids and stairways loomed between him and the overcast sky.

"We made it?"

"We did. And may I say it is fortunate I am along. Had you not been carried within my personal ambience…there were a number of spells in place that would have taken a bit of doing on your part to evade. They were not low-power, either. I do not believe they were aimed at you, but they would have been a severe hindrance nonetheless," Cruachan said, showing some understatement for once.

"Well, this is Mai. I don't suppose she ever thought of anybody catching a ride with a hearth imp, so none of those spells would have been geared to prevent a house-spirit's passage. I believe she knows we're coming--we as in Bob and/or Harry--but I don't, as I said, especially want her prepared right when we walk in, though there may be no avoiding that."

"Indeed, there are many alarms I would not set off, by my nature. House spirits do not activate even most magical alarms. If you set an alarm for the signatures and signals of a hearth imp, you'll get an alarm every time an insect wanders through. We are ubiquitous, and about three-quarters of us are completely harmless. Most of those who are not harmless are harmful only to intruders, to inimical happenings precipitated by a member of the household, or are created…exceptional, because of the circumstances of their creation. Even they are usually without the power to do great harm without the aid of unusual circumstance."

"All very true, my verbose and fascinating friend, which is why you get to go in front and scout, for both unexpected traps and for any persons with notions of defending Mai from attack. They may have instructions to let "me" by, as in Harry, but I can't count on that yet. I can't be completely sure of most of my hypotheses at this point. 'Before my body I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff, and damn'd be him that first cries, 'Hold, enough!'." Eryl grinned hugely, gesturing broadly for Cruachan to precede him.

Cruachan managed to sound dry. "My abilities sink from any pretense of professional excellence to the status of dubious honor. I had rather envisioned the wizard going first." He grinned, joking on the Irish-hero scream-and-leap tendency, though he'd disavowed it for himself.

"Yes, well, life's unpredictable like that," Eryl srugged. "All right, we won't throw you in totally unprepared. Let me do a little sniffing about first…" he drew his poignard and flipped it in high arcs, spinning it in waterfalls of long silver blade, always catchig it by the handle--that wasn't easy to do with a long poigard; Harry's father could likely be thanked for that ability--then shorter flips once or twice as if he were testing its weight for a throw. But he didn't throw, only saying "Very good; I have at least a rough idea of where she might be. Parts of this place are offices, showers, even sparse living quarters--that sort of thing. It makes sense on the surface, at least, that she'd set up there, and not in some steam chimney. Also, she isn't looking for approach from the ground by anybody but me, and while she has made it just possible for me to get in--she must've been trusting to Bob's ability to get us past the teleportation deflectors and the straight sheilds--she has set guards against anyone else who might make it in. I don't think she'd make herself too hard to find--for me, that is--I just hope to catch her, and probably Morgan, 'sleeping', so to speak. If not, we'll deal with that as it happens."

Cruachan did a midair swoop and came back around facing Eryl. "And my direction?"

"Here--you, and only you, should be able to see this…" he made a pass with the poignard, and lights--very soft, like glowing lichen--appeared here and there in the doorless metal corridor ahead of them. Many were spaced like footprints, though without the distinctive shape. "Invisibly tiny amounts of tracked dirt. You'd clean those, ordinarily. Now you only need to follow them, and see if there's anyone else there once we're inside. Once you detect live or pesudo-live people, of whatever sort, use the lights to pinpoint them. If there are spirits, find out whether they care that we're present, and warn me if they have any interest in us. I'll be a bit busy doing other things."

"Ah. Of course. I shall make sure you can easily detect some part of me so that we may remain close on to each other." Cruachan moved forward, an eager undulation in the air, the wavering in Eryl's view of the grass lit by bluish overcast.

"Where specifically are the members of your particular council?" Cruachan wanted to know as they proceeded inward, the light failing behind them; dim emergency lights cast a pale gloom over the concrete and metal interior. By this time, Eryl didn't have to ask him to make sure no one could hear him but Eryl.

"Searching the area for me. Or for Harry and Bob, in whatever combination they might find us. The same thing is going on in Europe with the local Councils there--all our last known locations. I don't know if our evading such capture is part of Mai's plan--if she simply hopes to fool us that she doesn't know we're not going to be found that way, or if she's not taking any chances. It matters very little. Mai is vulnerable, and the Drakes are converging."

"Why would that worry Mai? If she isn't an outcast Drake, then what is she to do with the Drakes, aside from one enemy she had among them? That could have been for any number of reasons."

"I'm afraid I'd best not go into that, except to remind you that she was ready to sacrifice her life to make sure the Drake in question was killed."

"Excellent point."

Behind them, the locklike door swung closed with a deceptively soft pneumatic whoosh.

Eryl raised a Boblike eyebrow. "Hm. Perhaps it's academic. I don't suppose there's much point in trying that," Eryl sighed, nodding at the door. "I didn't feel a thing that might've tripped a signal, and I'm sensing no immediate alert."

"I detect nothing related in the building itself, beyond the electrical current which was used to activate the switch to shut the door. A simple motion detector, apparently. Of course, that does not necessarily prove anything--although the people I sense nearby have not moved. That is a good sign that the door locking behind us is simply for the purpose of keeping animals out, or containing intruders so that no word of the activity here is spread."

"If it weren't for you, I'd have had to go to some trouble--perhaps detectable trouble--to determine whether it was safe. Let's move, because there'd be measures in place to dispatch anything large enough to be an intruder, or at least hold them later. For all they know, we're a badger, but let's keep on, because they'll be on the move for certain if they can tell one of us is human. Well. Three humans."

* * *

Cruachan followed his lights to a degree, but there were many high traffic--for their purposes--areas, where people, or at least one person, had walked back and forth over the same place. Eryl scanned carefully, low-level, being clever about it--figuring out what single aspects he needed to scan for, instead of using broad-spectrum scans that were easier to detect--and managed to get them through most of those spots. Occasionally, they were forced to rely on their judgment; since Cruachan had a vast reserve of stronghold infiltration strategy to call on, and Eryl nearly as much--but related specifically to this sort of magical defenses--it was enough to keep them clear of the human sentinels.

The surroundings didn't help much. Everything was made of metal, different consistencies of rubber, and more metal, or so it seemed; echoes and reverberations followed them constantly. Eryl didn't dare block them, because one never knew when one might be significant--a coded sound, a following footstep…he did stop them to narrow his focus to one sound in particular, on occasion, but it usually turned out to be water dripping regularly into a floor drain, or something similar.

Cruachan had paused in an intersection. "We must go up."

"As I said, the more livable aspects of such an installation would be on the ground floors…but then, Mai would have no trouble making even a holding tank livable, and it would certainly be more defensible from Drakes, who dislike ground attacks, but who can walk, run, and fight hand to hand as well as we can, if something's interfereing with their banefire. That's what gives them enough bouancy to fly; otherwise those wings wouldn't bear them. When they flame, they lose altitude, but they're usually diving anyway if it's humans they're after. The gas in the low thoracic reservoir builds back up quickly. I think it's their physiological similarity to us--far more of it than any other draconian species--that makes them so touchy about us, and this bunch so determined to prove they're superior to human. I'm sorry; sometimes Bob just has to get a word in. Lead on, then."

"That may be more difficult than our explorations to this point. I find no direct leads from here to the specific levels and areas we need to reach."

"Ah. Well, then, I suggest you keep a lookout for the subtle-strength wizards and mercenaries Mai has posted as sentries."

"With pleasure, Wizard Dresden," Cruachan boom-growled, and manifested a shadowy shape, eyes and claws, but no teeth. It occurred to Eryl that neither Bob nor Harry had seen those teeth in any way but closed in a grin. He wondered what they would look like open and ready to worry flesh.

Eryl stood very still; he had one hand on his poignard. Then he drew his sword, with a metallic slither, from the scabbard across his back. "I think by now you must know I'm here, Ancient," he whispered. "And I know you are not only expecting me, but counting on my arrival. Why, I don't know. But this cat and mouse game grows tiresome. I'm sick of avoiding puddles where this concrete floor dips."

He felt a humming along his sword, brief, but enough to impart the necessary information.

"All right, Cruachan," he said softly, resheathing his weapons. "Keep the lookout for sentries; you're right, avoidance is the best policy--they may not know Mai has informed us of her whereabouts and is expecting us promptly. But I believe I can find Mai now. We'll have to watch each other for signals."

"I will remain alert, Wizard Eryl."

"Oh, and don't call me that here. Thomas will do. If she already knows my name, and she likely does, I'll simply have to deal with that, but no point handing it to her if we're lucky and she doesn't. Besides, there's no need to inform Morgan of it."

"I will remember."

"We go up," Eryl said, eyeing the grillework stairs that ascended upward over their heads, into gridlock confusion too dense to follow with the eye, complicated by walkways and heavy, metal-latched doors interrupting things at random intervals.

"I am alert. I will move close on to you."

"Thank you. Here we go." He approached the first likely-looking staircase, and found, at the landing, the next set of risers that seemed to head in the direction of Mai. "One wouldn't think it would be height she was interested in; probably she sought out the point farthest in, center-of-gravitywise for the building, that she could reasonably reach."

"There are a number of Drakes in the near vicinity, outside this edifice," Cruachan growl-boomed. "I can sense them now."

"I'm not surprised. Their magical signatures--I can only assume they're using magic to locate Mai--are becoming more spread out, however. Covering the area, establishing a perimeter of sorts, I should imagine. Perhaps they think they can wait her out."

"They may be able to."

"Mai? I doubt it. But I also doubt she would put up with being trapped like a rat in a hole for long; that's probably what they're counting on, too."

They climbed through flaking-painted steel, massive individual functioning units for which he could not even guess the purposes, and endless different sorts of meters, dials and controls. That none had computerized components or digital readouts showed the age of the place. It must have been one of Chicago's first large power plants. It was surprising it hadn't been torn down or salvaged out, but there could be a lot of reasons--mostly financial and political--for that.

It took long enough that Eryl was beginning to doubt his sense of place and direction; he paused to recconoiter, while standing on an outside observation terrace that overlooked a long row of massive turbines, their half-circle covers shadowy in the dim cloudlight.

The door behind them opened.

Eryl didn't say a word; Cruachan automatically went invisible. That might even protect him from detection by a wizard who wasn't looking for hearth imps, but Cruachan's presence was detectable in other ways. Still couldn't hurt.

Morgan. For once, he wasn't in an impeccable tailored suit; he was in what looked like fatigues and the sort of boots you expect to see with them, though none of it appeared to be actual military gear; simply a logical choice of attire to allow freedom of movement, traction if needed, and the carrying of other equipment.

For a moment, they just stood there, giving each other the semi-hostile once-over. Eryl didn't want to be the first to speak, but he didn't want to stand there all evening, either. "Morgan."

"Dresden."

"You may call me Thomas."

"Thomas," Morgan repeated. His eyes had taken in Morgan's snug, black "cat burglar" attire, the poignard, and the sword across his back; doubtless also his changed accent and the easily balanced, upright stance of a dancer--or a swordsman.

"But you are--in some wise, at least--Dresden?"

Eryl tilted his head to one side and considered. "In a sense. But in that sense, I'm also Bainbridge. We are all, of course, here at your service, or rather Mai's." He allowed his full lips to pull into a droll smile, and gave Morgan a nod-bow.

Morgan asked no further questions. He must have sensed no inimical energy signatures--Thomas hadn't approached this with no sheilds up only because he was a complete lunatic. "Thomas. Very well. If you'll come with me, please." He was polite--or as polite as Morgan ever got--but it wasn't a request. The older wizard turned and stepped back through the doorway, leaving any questions he might have about Dreden's changed aura and appearance to Mai to ask.

It did surprise him that Cruachan wasn't mentioned. No one would be able to recognize him for what he was--he was too atypical, and that was putting it mildly. But Morgan made no mention of it, nor of leaving this unidentifiable presence behind--despite his being exceptionally strong in the art and there being no way he could have missed the hearth imp's presence, in one way or another. Though for all he knew, the way Cru had damped himself, what he was sensing could have been part of Eryl's magical ambience.

Eryl followed without a word, knowing that Cruachan was watching their backs for anything his own senses failed to detect.

One tromp through a deserted power plant later--lit by emergency lights, and werelight here and there--they emerged in what had been a protected-access control room; they had to go through several sealable door-locks to get to it. Eryl hoped it had its own outside source of air; he didn't trust the ventilators in a facility this old.

One of the operator's chairs turned to face them as the door opened; in it sat Mai, looking as animated as she ever did. She wore tight black cotton leggings and a black tank top, with boots similar to Morgan's. He spared a thought to the fact that it looked like a mix of his own outfit and Morgan's, except for the tank. The clothes made her appear tiny. This being Mai, Eryl hardly even noticed.

"Ancient," Eryl said, with a polite half-bow.

She eyed him, and nodded back. "Dresden? Or how shall I call you?"

"Thomas is the name I go by."

"And who is your unseen friend?"

"He is just that, a friend. Consider him my bodyguard. He'll take no action if I'm not endangered." He considered warning her that any spells she might try to work on Cruachan, unless she stooped to working magic designed to harm a hearth-imp, would be ineffective, then decided not to give her that much information at this point. It'd never occur to her anyway.

"I don't care if it's a Dharmapala; whatever it is, if it has no stake or intention here beyond protecting you--and I certainly have no wish to see you harmed--its presence may even be useful." She shrugged, waving the matter aside.

As Eryl heroically did not break out laughing at her choice of spirit aide example, considering where he'd just come from before reaching Chicago, Cruachan showed eyes, teeth, and claws, the last two glowing a bit more than usual, as though coated with phosphorus. "Greetings, Ancient one," he boomed, presumably such that she could hear him. "At a more appropriate time, perhaps we could talk. We may be of an age, you and I."

She and Morgan both blinked. Morgan scowled, but Mai's expression, while not a smile, seemed serene. "As you say, this is not an appropriate time, but at least you're civilized. Now, about you, 'Thomas'…"

"Currently I am neither Bob nor Harry, but I have a number of questions to ask you in their name."

"You can save your breath. I know what they want to know, and you know that."

Eryl's full lips twisted in a bitter smile. "Yes, you would. And you would have to have the information, too. You'd have to know the specifics of the construction of Bainbridge's curse if his skull were to fall into your area of jurisdiction."

"That's quite true. If--"

Suddenly there was a reverberation in all the metal around them, even making the dial needles on the defunct monitors jump in sympathy.

"Oh dear," Mai sighed, looking mildly irritated.

"That was a…a Drake?"

"Blowing her reserve in an attempt to reach me. Probably lost all its gas on that blast, hit the wall and bounced off. Probably a young one, they mostly are, which has both advantages and disadvantages for us. Oh, they're adult, just barely so, most of them. Easy to rile up. But even they ought to realize that I came here in the first place--aside from it being out of sight of most human habitation--because they'd have to reduce this place to slag before they could get at me. Or you."

"Wait a minute. Me?"

"In good time. This place is a fortress, for my purposes. No Drake spell could penetrate this far in against my wards and counterspells unless it had the sheer power to completely destroy the structure, and frankly, I don't know of any Drakes that could do that. They certainly could if they work together, but even under the best of circumstances, they don't work well together, even in a common cause. This bunch wouldn't even be able to make a start."

"Sounds familiar."

"They can work for a common goal, just as human wizards do, though; and right now, their common goal is my death. And, when they find you can beat them in a straight fight, yours, too. But with luck, we can use their discovery of your ability to our advantage. It will even--you'll like this part--minimize the death count of the Drakes if we do it right. Minimizing the death count of the three of us--"

"Four of us. My friend is far from useless in a fight, even--or perhaps especially--against half-crazed drakes. Before you continue, let me just see if I've got this straight--you sent all the local wizards--but for Morgan, of course--away, when you knew the Drakes would come for you if you had no cabal to help defend you?"

"Dresden--Thomas--or…whatever you're calling yourself--" red light flashed in Mai's eyes, and he knew she knew his true name. He had only the one, after all; the Ancient wouldn't have any trouble learning it. "--I put out the alert for your capture as a powerful renegade, and an abetter of a black practitioner who could seriously endanger both those of our world and the mundane world, in very broad scope. You are out as an APB with most of the powers in North America, as well as most of Western Europe, North and South. But I never had any expectation that you would be caught that way."

He blinked slowly. "No, you didn't, did you--you knew I'd have the capability to evade such a search--and I'd have to, to find what I needed--by…coming right--you did it to drive me right to you. You knew what I'd need to know, you knew that I'd know you knew it, and you arranged it so that coming straight to you would be the only way I could reach you at all--and now, all other avenues to the information have been closed; you are the one source I can reach with any expectation of cooperation, instead of apprehension, when I get to you. But how--how did you know I would have to know what you know, about--"

"There is a reason that the Bainbridge skull was left in your custody. Morgan and I have had words about it, but I prevailed, obviously. Harry Dresden is a marshmallow. If Bainbridge's innate need to regain his power didn't do it…their mutual need for each other, personal and otherwise, dramatically increased the odds of their joining. I wasn't sure Dresden would survive it; in fact, it might have been convenient if he hadn't, but he did. You see, I needed Bainbridge. Getting Bainbridge and Dresden in one is either the price I pay, or perhaps a bonus; that remains to be seen. Dresden is a Morningway by descent; he has locked off much of his power due to a violent revulsion at the idea of ending up like his uncle, and those untapped strengths--Bainbridge can show him how to use them, without violating his code of honor. Bainbridge has been there. He knows the warning signs. He can teach Harry to steer clear, and then Harry will be an asset to our community, rather than the class buffoon." Her voice softened. "Believe it or not, I also follow a code of honor. Mine permits the sacrifice of individuals for the greater good--whether that individual is myself or not. Dresden's doesn't, unless the individual is himself. With any luck, Bainbridge can teach him better, but that's not a necessity, and not the problem we're here to deal with."

Seething silently, feeling Cruachan bounding bodilessly around the narrow confines of the control room with irritation he was repressing only because he knew Eryl wouldn't like it if he fried every electrical circuit in the place--he'd learned a lot about modern building maintenance at Megare's, with that good old timey Druid memorization abilitity--Eryl said "Yes, you're quite right, let's abandon that subject before I become positively unmanageable. Why is it you need Bainbridge so badly that you made yourself vulnerable in this way, sending the Council and other cabal members on a bloody snipe hunt? Morgan is powerful, and you may be the most powerful of us all; but if the Drakes have joined in common cause against you, you don't stand a chance alone, or alone with Morgan. And--just as long as we're at the point, now--just why are they attacking you?" He folded his arms, a gesture he seemed to get from Harry, but Harry hunched up a bit when he did it. With Eryl, it was an aggressive stance. He looked bigger, feet planted shoulder width apart, head thrown back, waiting for an answer.

She had her arms folded across her front, too, managing to look just as impressive, just as aggressive, and meaner into the bargain; she drummed the fingers of her right hand on her left bicep. "All right. One at a time. Dresden made a rather encompassing assumption about me once; I neither confirmed nor denied it."

"That you were a Drake," Eryl nodded. "I quite remember."

"Well, I'm not a Drake. I am, in fact, the only wizard extant in the world at the moment who can kill a Drake without any sort of power backup or assistance from other wizards. Before you ask, I have--in self defense, each time--killed three Drakes. One was a member of their nobility. I can't tell you how important or not she was, there's no direct translation to our systems of government. They run things via a sort of oligarchy, with direct democracy in some situations--there's few enough of them that--never mind, it's complicated. In any case, I don't think that was the problem. I was in trouble before he died. I was not informed so in any direct way; but I'm not a fool. I know when I'm being observed, and there were several attempts on my life that were clearly Drake magic. They obviously didn't expect them to fail, or they might have tried to disguise them better. I owe Morgan my life for one of them, but that's not new."

Eryl glanced at Morgan, who stood silently, motionless, as usual. Eryl nodded. "That was one of my speculations, not that I'm any the less impressed. For the moment, I'll take your word that the attacks were not provoked by anything you were doing against the Drakes--that they were genuine self-defense, not merely technical self-defense. But you can't do it under all circumstances, can you? Or the Drake in Harry's apartment would not have been able to prevent you from healing yourself. I remember you complaining of being pathetically old and weak--which implies that at one time, when you were in a position of greater power, the Drake could not have stopped you from regaining your full strength."

"Very good. I was too battered to kill that Drake myself, but at one time--a time which may or may not have come again--I could have regenerated no matter her efforts to the contrary. Extra points, my friend." She quirked a half-smile. "The first occasion of my killing a Drake, I will privilege you to know, was in Ta'i-yuan, near the Huang-ho River, around 770 B.C.E. I was working in the fields. I didn't know I was a wizard; only that I was different, and shunned. I nearly killed myself as well, due to lack of training." Eryl's eyes widened--she had done something destructive enough to kill a Drake totally untrained and not died of whatever it was--?!

But she merely continued speaking, as though she'd said nothing remarkable. "I have considerably more control now, of course. But I can do it, so long as there are no undermining circumstances--such as the injuries I suffered when the one you know about got the literal drop on me. That's far more than any other human wizard can do; and there is a faction of fanatical Drakes who are brought together for the purpose of eliminating me or any other human who can fight a Drake and win--without resorting to methods as extreme as the ones I had to go to, either that first time, or risking all of us in the otherside darkness to kill just one of them."

"Who was the Drake in Harry's apartment, that it was worth two deaths, and the threat of it for the rest of us?"

"She was their leader. She was a fanatic; Drakes, according to her philosophy--this part isn't unusual, all Drakes think it, it's just that, as I said, she was a fanatic--are the rightful dominant species on this planet--despite their abysmally low numbers next to the human, cetacean, and other sentient species' population numbers. It's part of their religion, and you really don't want me to go into that. What matters is that humans are to be made subservient, slaves, food animals. We are only twisted, inferior versions of them. It's much the same way most humans see anyone on this planet who isn't human.

"Our technological superiority over the Drakes, magical or otherwise, is an obscenity. All on this planet, including us, was given to them to do with as they will." She smirked. "Sometimes I wonder if they either read Genesis or wrote it. Anyway, the fanatic group isn't large, but it's not being controlled in any way by the more conservative majority, either."

"Fundamentalist Drakes?"

She gave him a sour look. "This isn't funny, Thomas-the-twin. Thomas was supposed to be, in one story, Jesus' twin brother, which was why that was his name. Did you know that when you took that name?"

He raised a cool Bob eyebrow. "No, I didn't. The name was given to me by a friend."

"I see. In any event, even a small Drake faction, with an unreasoning contempt of humans and a common goal of killing or subjugating us, would be very bad news for many, many humans before they could be stopped by conventional means, the worst of it being the fact that nobody could believe that human populations in various parts of the world--starting here--were being attacked by dragons. They'd waste time trying to come up with other explanations, hide the severity of the threat from the public, cause more deaths."

"It's not inconcievable that if they went that far, the majority population of the Drakes would step in--I know they don't want all-out war, and this would start one. But you're right, it would take quite a few dead before they percieved the danger to themselves by the actions of the zealots, and the death toll could be in the thousands by then."

"Worse." Morgan spoke. "If they knew what to hit, it could be in the millions."

Mai gestured with both arms at their surroundings. "Which is why you find me camped in a deserted power plant well outside of the nearest substantial concentration of humans. I am heroically going to stop this before it can start. If, of course, I can." Her droll tone of voice and lack of smile almost made Eryl giggle.

"Yes. Difficult here, if not impossible, to reach you, and no humans to be killed in any…hostilities, hopefully not even any witnesses. But it leaves you stranded here, unless you have a way to call your Council and cabals back. Why must you do it alone? You may be the only one who can kill a Drake in a straight fight, but other wizards can certainly--"

"I don't need them now. I have you."


	20. Chapter 20

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the characters and I don't own this story.

**_LOUD AND CLEAR! I DO NOT, HAVE NOT AND WILL NOT EVER OWN THIS STORY!_**

**This story is the property of Tang Guangzhen who was kind enough to give me permission to post this here. Any flames about that will be used to fry your ass.**

**Thank You**

* * *

Eryl blinked. "Excuse me?"

"You know that you can beat a Drake in a straight fight, don't you?"

"Yes. I know that."

"Together, we can do exponentially more--we'd be greater than the sum of two Drake-killing wizards. We need to convince them that killing me will not give them total magical superiority, in the sense of 'total air superiority' in more mundane, though just as deadly, warfare. They must be made to think there are too many of us to kill every one who can successfully fight back. I have worked with Morgan; he can probably fool them that he is another such wizard, so long as we're watching him as well as each other."

Eryl was silent for a moment, formulating words. "You allowed Harry to keep Bainbridge's skull, even through its theft by Justin Morningway's fetch, because you hoped Dresden and Bainbridge would join into one?"

She gazed at him a moment, then said "I have sources of information that you don't. Save for Bainbridge, I am the only one who knew what he was capable of--and is capable of again, in you."

Eryl turned away, murmuring "I knew…Harry knew…for some time now, since…" since the dreams had begun, "…since a while ago, that…Bainbridge was more powerful than anyone had known. I know the full extent of his power now--it's my power to use, for the moment, heavily augmented by Harry's, as they're not two powers trying to work in tandem now; they're one. But neither I nor Bob had any idea he was capable of fighting Drakes and winning without employing some sort of augmenting strategy."

"Actually, my knowledge doesn't extend to whether or not that was ever tested. But I did know his power. I know for a fact, from other things he did, that there is no reason he couldn't have done so. Dresden has untapped resources; if he's been blended with Bainbridge, those resources will be tapped; then you--Thomas--" she nodded in acknowledgement of the use-name, with an expression that indicated she would use it, at least in the presence of others, "--are the only other wizard alive with power that at least equals mine in the areas necessary to defeat a Drake."

Not the only one, Eryl thought, but not for the world would he have revealed Megare's existence. "Wait. If the leader of the Drakes who want you dead simply because you were an unnatural obscenity, posibly the start of something disastrous, because you could defend yourself successfully against them was killed--then why are there others after you now?"

"I made a martyr of her. They sent their best against me and lost, and it matters very little that it wasn't only me to kill her; it took some quick thinking on Dresden's part, which I will give him credit for. I survived, she died, and now--though the kindest word for their attempts on my life would be 'disorganized', and they constantly divide their own numbers with internecine squabbles--I would be foolish to discount the threat. They are at least as intelligent as human, possibly more so. They're simply more at the mercy of their limbic systems than we are. Well…than most humans, that is."

"So, they're barmy geniuses?"

"I wouldn't go that far. Geniuses, who can lose perspective. Most Drakes, of course, don't care if I live or die--my having successfully defended myself on several occasions isn't enough to set them off. I have no interest in killing Drakes. Frankly, I have no interest in Drakes. They have their own society and it very seldom crosses paths with wizardly purposes. They know I'll never go Drake hunting. It's only the faction that believes it to be unnatural that any human can defeat any Drake--that I'm the start of a trend of some sort--that's after me. The rest just think I'm a freak." She said this blandly, and it never occurred to Eryl to smart off. "Convincing the zealots that there's more than one human who can successfully take them in a straight fight won't alarm the rest of them; they have more perspective, and they're not so involved that they won't be able to see the strategy for what it is. But these need to be convinced that it's too late to stop the beginning of the trend; that there are quite sufficient wizards capable of fighting them successfully, too many for their faction to handle. They will be forced to regroup, and rethink, and fanatical groups that ran on the power of a now-martyred charismatic leader seldom survive that."

"You needed Bob--Bainbridge--because you knew he could kill Drakes…barehanded, so to speak, as well."

"Precisely. And as I said, together, we are not one Drake-killer plus one Drake-killer. We're more than that."

"But you lacked the ability to restore Bob to life."

"Ceasar's wife--or in this case, Ceasar--must be above reproach. I could have done it, but not in such a way as would restore his power--without resorting to the Black. It's true I could have released him from his curse, but that would have done me little good. Frankly, I refused to do so, hoping that one day, I would find a way to bring him back to life."

"Lonely at the top?" Eryl was tight-lipped, brow tense, unsympathetic in tone.

"More that it was difficult being the first one every idiot with a new-world-order manifesto decided to try to kill first. Morgan was kept unacceptably busy dispatching such idiots. And, yes, the position is somewhat…empty, at times. I have power you can't imagine, and that I don't like to think about. And that much knowledge of the universe…"

"…you needn't continue. Harry and I now have at least a version of that knowledge, and we can see why Bob kept it from Harry. It…it isn't pleasant. So you needed Bainbridge for personal reasons?"

"Personal and professional. It would have been reassuring to know that Bainbridge, now calmed and…changed, from his long period of contemplation without the power to act past a certain point, existed in the world. There is a reason I am not dead, even after all this time. It is not by choice."

Eryl eyed her. "Are you saying--" he was interrupted by another slam, and then a series of lighter ones, this barrage making the lights flicker.

"My. I think the whole group's shown up," Mai said, raising an eyebrow.

Undeterred, Eryl felt Cruachan boost him back up from a near-pratfall and continued "Are you saying you've stayed earthbound, and in a human form, as you are, out of a sense of responsibility?"

"Don't make it sound quite so self-sacrificing; but partly, yes. I have a bit of a power lust, as well, I'm afraid. But most of what you see isn't the result of that." She paused, considering him, glanced at the ever-stoic Morgan, and looked back at Eryl. "I am cold, Thomas. I have to be cold, I have to be…feared, even to the point of being resented, or I could not do what I do. It is the only way to keep power, and therefore order, among wizards. And I can't stop doing what I do until there is someone else who can do it. None of the other Councils, cabals, or other magical organizations have produced anything that measured up to me--or Bainbridge."

Once again wondering about Megare, Eryl said instead "So you are hanging on, doing your job, coordinating the world Councils, until there is someone fit to take your place."

"That's rather a melodramatic way of putting it, but yes, to a degree. I would not throw myself off a cliff or any such thing if someone emerged who could take over; long life is tiring--but only when it is enforced. When death becomes a choice one can make, millenia of life is a gift.

"In any case, Bainbridge…or rather you, now, Bainbridge and Dresden…" she shook her head. "I presupposed this, and there are definitely positive aspects to it, but I'm still not sure how I feel about it. Dresden will make it difficult for Bainbridge to…do what he must, at times."

"I have news for you. Bainbridge wouldn't have been able to turn off his conscience and get the job coldly and clinically done even before he melded with Dresden. He didn't only become more balanced in his perspective over the centuries; he developed a terrible case of sentimentality. Power available to him or not, he will not make all the same decisions you would even without Harry's influence."

She waved an impatient, dismissive hand. "That was never in question; he will run things his way. That's proper enough. Dynasties, and their strengths, and the developments that happen because of those different strengths, change. That's what keeps a culture, of either magical or mundane humans, alive. I'm more concerned with the fact of Bainbridge's ability to handle it, and not…"

"Crack?"

"For lack of a better word. That's the important part; without a sitting White Council leader and World Council coordinator, there will be anarchy, and we will exterminate ourselves and all other life on this planet. But Dresden…he isn't even remotely interested in being that coordinator. He is determined to be one of the faceless masses, and his influence on Bainbridge may be a problem."

"You're assuming Bainbridge--or I--would have any interest in taking the job--or perhaps being your co-leader for a few centuries to get the feel of it--anyway."

"That was not a concern at the time I decided upon this course of action. Without getting him back, with his power intact, there'd be no chance even to pose the question."

"And so, the skull went to Harry, though you could have come up with reasons to remove it from his possession."

"Dresden loves Bainbridge," Mai said matter-of-factly, as though she might have told him there was a loose thread on his sweater, showing neither sympathy, nor any particular contempt. She went on "He was without companionship as a child, save for Bainbridge; he had emotional ties to him that exponentially increased the chances that Bainbridge could be restored to a life that would return his powers, without resorting to the Black."

"Ah." Eryl nodded. At least one aspect of Bob's curse answered. "So you did know what might happen if Bob and Harry got…sufficiently close."

"It could only happen if certain other factors were involved, which could have come about by a number of ways each. Apparently, they did. But the love between them was the easy one, so I made sure the skull stayed with Dresden."

The room rocked again. Morgan growled. Cruachan did, too, which reverberated the metal flooring a bit.

"Did you know that this blending would take place?" Eryl wondered.

"Not in this form. Like I said, I'm not sure yet whether it's an advantage or a problem." Then she reached into a leather pouch at her waist. She pulled out a flattened-looking triangle of bone, holding it on her open palm. "Help me take care of these Drakes. Even if we don't kill them all--I doubt we could--we can convince them that there is more than one wizard who can take them on; theat they are facing far more than they thought there was to face at all; they'll have to back off, regroup, and try to find out what the threat really is now--which may take the steam right out of them. Many may even leave the faction, on discovering that there are other human wizards who can fight them barehanded to the death and handle weapons that they didn't think could be used by human wizards--no point in getting radical over stopping a trend before it starts if it's already well underway."

Eryl folded his arms, tilting his head in a Boblike fashion, and rocked back and forth on the soles of his feet, staying nothing. Mai had already been over that, but she was establishing her current request for his half of their bargain, which was fine with him.

She sighed. "It is a radical faction, and, as with humans, radical factions require constant feeding with grandstanding, shows of the faction's power--and above all, a charismatic leader; or they lose momentum, and members. You know this is true. Their goals are huge, their numbers and resources few, and they need the lack of perspective maintained by someone who knows how to do it to keep it up, or common sense--or healthy fear--will override blind hatred. Their leader's martyr status will only carry them so long, unless another strong leader emerges quickly enough. By the way, before you ask, I do have power backups and other resources. It will, however, take us to handle the ones that will be the most use right now. Morgan can handle some of them, back us up."

"As in, your typical wizard couldn't handle these spells, these power augmenting tools."

"Morgan is far from a typical wizard; he can use many of them. 'Typical' wizards would be blown into char if they tried to use these enhancers."

"And that part of the skull…?"

"Is yours, if you do this. With the promise of more information later. There's no time for it now."

"I have little choice. Short of teleporting, which you seem to have guarded against--wisely, I might add; there are a few Drakes which have that ability, within certain distances--there's no way out of here without a fight, as invisibility--except Cruachan's sort, actually not being there--is useless; Drakes can detect such sheilds. Though there could be tunnels. In fact, there probably are."

"If you want to get out that way, I can't stop you. But the bone, and the information, then stays with me. And you get to deal with an entire population of magical people who will almost certainly think you killed me. Morgan and I can't stand alone."

Eryl was silent for a few moments; his face might have been cast in stone.

Finally he said, unfolding his arms and taking a few steps away from Mai, "This is what I would prefer; we kill as few as possible--demonstrate our power, dishearten them--drive most of them off. They will spread the tale; this particular radical faction's purpose is defunct. That should fit in with your plan of taking the fury out of the faction. But I should add that the rest of Bob's skull has vanished, and though we have speculation as to what's become of it, and a fairly certain knowledge of what its magical functions have been transferred to, I have no assurance that the fragment is any good to Bob, Harry and I at all. Some good-faith information from you, before I finish deciding whether to seek an underground exit, would be welcome."

She was expressionless as well, and said quietly "I have given you a wealth of information, if you bother to sift through my words, that I would give no one else but Morgan. As for the bone triangle, it has properties that may be useful to you; I will tell you about them, and the rest of what I know about the curse, afterward. I'm afraid I can guarantee nothing, or I would include such assurances to ensure your cooperation--but my knowledge honestly only goes so far. It is a great deal more than you have, though. Perhaps it will go far enough for your purposes." She pursed her lips. "I am cold, Thomas. And I hide truths, if I believe they would do far-reaching damage. But I do not lie."

Eryl nodded slowly. He believed that. The reason she and Morgan were so closemouthed and smug was partly that they were closemouthed and smug; but also, if they lied, they would lose the satisfaction they got out of it, because it would become a dishonorable act to keep their own counsel in that particular manner. They'd do it rather than risk disaster, but they'd take the responsibility for lying, and everybody perfers to minimize having to do that. If Harry had actually asked if Mai were a Drake, instead of hinting around, Mai would have had to either answer, refuse to, or backhand Harry through a wall, all of which could have been taken as some sort of affirmative, though the last might not. However, this was Mai. She could have found another way out. Answering a question with a question, perhaps. Harry did have a healthy respect for/fear of Mai. He wouldn't have pushed further.

"May I ask once more…how did you know, that…that Bob and Harry…would become me? Or at least, that you would get Bainbridge within your grasp, in such condition that he'd have his power back?"

"I didn't, but I knew it was possible. Not only that, but--" she paused, then shook her head tiredly and waved away whatever she'd been going to say. "A tiresomely long list of things considered, I'll spare us all the details--it was my best chance, if I didn't want to wait another few centuries, dodging these idiot fundamentalist Drakes. Like Bainbridge, I know far more than I can tell, for the safety of everyone. Believe it or not, there was a time I was not secretive by nature." She shared a look with Morgan; they both smirked quietly, as at a shared joke.

The room rocked again.

Eryl said "All right, I think we've come to the end of talking. Shall we?"

Mai turned to the side, and--where Eryl had sensed nothing--a long staff of rowan wood, inlaid with silver, appeared in her hand. "I don't usually need this," she said idly, "but at the moment it's my connection to our backup power. And yes, it has a backup itself, if necessary."

"Also a big stick in the hand is reassuring when going up against scary monsters." He smiled a little, laying a hand on his poignard in a sympathetic gesture.

She actually gave him a genuine smile, though she said nothing.

* * *

They emerged nearly silently, no one's footwear clanging even on the metal grid steps, on an observation platform at the top of the section they were in, the highest level of the structure, some eight to ten stories up--not counting the towers.

"You honestly think this is the most strategic location to fend off an aerial attack?!" Eryl demanded, looking around them, then up at the bursts of greenish light that were all that was visible of the perimeter-circling Drakes in the lowering clouds. Fog was beginning to form as the sun went down.

"It will be dark in an hour or so," she said, as though that explained anything.

"Do you think that'll stop them finding us?"

"I think that in their natural forms, Drakes have poor night vision, even worse than human, really, and for the same reason--they see in a broader spectrum of color, but retinal color receptors don't transmit just any light that hits them--only a particular limited set of wavelengths. They navigate at night by the moon and stars, which will not be out tonight, and more recently, human-related lights on the ground. They'll need their fire to see us here once we put the lights out--" around them, all the external lamps were suddenly extinguished, and the gloom became deep blue. "--which will mean we'll be able to see them any time they can see us."

"What if one acts as a torch for the rest?"

"Possible. They're nuts enough to kamikaze, or some of them may be, at least; we can count on their inherent egotism to lower the odds of that--they'll mostly be sure they're too desperately needed. We'll have to use scanning spells, if that falls through. But I doubt it. At the risk of repeating myself, they're not usually any kind of team players, even in a common cause. They'll all wanna be the one to take us out. What we need to do is, as much as possible, nothing that creates light in the EM spectrum they can detect, or at least not from a distance. I have the next best thing to a damper for that--an alert, if we or our magic goes into the Drake-detectable spectrum; we'll have to decide as we go what's worth the risk, whether the radiation's enough to be noticeable."

"And if they change shape into something that can see in the dark?"

"If they change into owls or something, we'll simply blow them out of the sky. If they change shape in order to see better in the dark, they'll give up some of their other powers; they only have their full magical powers in their natural form, though what they have in their human forms is enough to make us all pay attention, for certain. That's the biggest danger--a Drake in human form has more power than any Drake but one in its natural form. Don't let any strangers climb the ladders to this deck, and watch those outlying towers. They'll certainly try to use those as launch points if they can see well enough to land on one without alerting us."

"Count on that."

"Besides, it'll be a point of honor, if you can call it that with this nutbar bunch, to defeat us in their natural forms."

"Mai, if they do defeat us, there'll be nothing organized, nothing coordinated, to stand them off the general human population in and around Chicago. They'll be in a human-killing rage. All our people are still thinking the big problem is locating me, that I'm the big threat. Bob, I mean, and Harry. They don't know anything about this."

"Don't be too sure. I gave them a story about an…unlikely possibility. I grant you it's risky, but it'll take them only a little time to get back here if they're signaled to do so, and it's better than nothing. The only thing I didn't warn them about was the possibility of my death."

"Mai…if you die…you are the acknowledged leader of the North American Councils, and the Coordinator of most of the world Councils, because no other wizard is stupid enough to try to bring you down, both for yourself and for all the powerful wizards who are absolutely loyal to you. As you say, you are harsh, and cold--but you must be, to keep any kind of order over thousands of unbelievably powerful-- and some not-entirely-sane--magical types, keep some sort of system of rule enforced, and to do so with some shaky degree of justice. There was nothing like an election, or even a popular demand--you're simply accepted now. But without you--"

"I know," she said shortly, flipping her staff this way and that, causing tiny lights and glyphs to emerge and disappear--she looked like an emergency technician of whatever kind, doing a precheck of her equipment, before whether or not it worked became a matter of life and death. "They'll certainly work together to stop the zealot Drakes, but after that--power scramble."

"All over the world, Mai…"

"Unless someone else with my power comes along, the worldwide organizations--I mean, the different ones for various specific agendas--will probably be the only things that hang on in any form at all. The umbrella communication and information relays--"

"--and the impetus to obey the rare but not nonexistent executive directive--"

"--will break down. Only those organizations with common causes will continue."

"An interconnected web of Councils over as much of the world as we can reach is to everyone's benefit!"

"In the larger picture. Humans aren't that great at seeing the larger picture. Especially not magical ones. Nor are vampires, civilized weres--"

"I get the idea," Eryl growled, drawing his sword with his right hand and his poignard with his left.

Mai paused in her staff-flipping; now she was tracing symbols, watching different colors light on the thing, in different patterns, in the silver inlay. She eyed his weapons. "Interesting choices."

Eryl smirked. "Bainbridge was quite the blade fighter; he had a gift for it, and apparently he still does. I assure you, Harry has absolutely nothing for which to compensate. And as we've noted, you're the one with the big stick."

She grinned and didn't answer, completing her checks. Then, to Eryl's surprise, she turned and handed the staff to Morgan. Morgan's sword-staff was just visible, thrust through his equipment belt, which had several understated cases and pouches attached to it.

"Um…" Eryl managed, looking at Mai, then Morgan.

Morgan smirked. "I am not ashamed to admit that I'm going to be needing this long before the Ancient will."

"I told you, some of it, he can handle," Mai said, scanning the skies. "And we'll need him to."

"And we shall see what I can handle," Cruachan said, appearing as eyes, teeth, claws, and shadowy, in-and-out black-furred body.

Eryl said quickly "Cruachan--that charm you carry. The one we used to get you here. Can you put it on by yourself?"

Cruachan's boom was dubious--at the notion of putting the charm on again at all, not at his ability. "I believe so, yes."

"You may need to. You'll know when, if so. In the meantime--stay as invisible as you can. Don't be afraid to dodge in and out of this plane of perception. They'll still be able to sense you part of the time, but every little bit…"

"Understood." Cruachan vanished from sight again.

"Do you think there's even a chance they'd parley?" Eryl wondered idly, just for something to say, as they stood in a triangle, facing outward, with an undulation in the air hovering over their heads.

"With humans? Not the slightest chance. It would be as if women had thrown off their chadors and taken over a building in a Muslim country. If they had no hostages--or if they did, if the hostages were female--the army would simply bomb them dead. Muslim men in those countries don't negotiate with women. It'd be like negotiating with…dogs. You don't negotiate with a mad dog, you shoot it. And Drakes don't negotiate with humans."

"Why, Ancient. You don't sound at all hopeful that we can give them reason to see that it might be to their advantage." Eryl was grinning and giving his words an earnest flavor.

She grinned back. "As hopeful as I can get that is we might be able to give them reason to see it'd be to their advantage to run like hell. They'll be cursing us all the way, I guarantee you, and planning revenge, whether it's ever carried out or not. Tell Dresden there'll be no talking our way out of this."

"Oh, he knows. He knows."

And just like that, the first one came down.

It fell from the sky like a meteor, having dived, obviously, before it flamed, green banefire and nothing else now visible--and Mai threw up an arm and it blew into a thousand flaming fragments, scattering for what seemed miles, littering the roof, the walkways, the protective frameworks of the roof installations. Tiny pieces, and every piece was burning.

"Oh, God," Eryl said shakily.

"Breathe, Thomas," she said, her voice hard. "We've got maybe a couple of minutes before they send more than one at once--and then you and I are both going to have to do what I just did, and you'll only have one chance. They're only holding back this much because when I was surprised by their leader, she managed to beat me hard enough to kill me if it hadn't been for the Wardens, Dresden and Bainbridge. But hold back even a little and you'll kill us all. I assume you know what I did was ignite their banefire fuel. It's a subtle maneuver--that's where our power comes in; not sheer force, but the precision ability that goes with it--but it'll kill them for sure, where sheer force might fail."

"Obviously it'll kill them for sure, but I've never--"

"But you can. I know you can, I know Bainbridge could, and I can feel it in you. Now come on. Stay with me. Morgan'll be backing us up, and--"

"Why didn't any hit us?" Eryl asked dazedly, suddenly, noticing there was an area of a couple of feet all around their group that was free of cooking Drake. Gods of Uruk, the smell.

"That would have been me," Cruachan boomed. "I am invulnerable to fire."

"I know, you take naps in it, but this is Drake fire, banefire," Eryl shouted desperately. Stupid imp! He was so smart otherwise, didn't he get this?

"Remain calm, Wizard Thomas. If I cannot simply shed the fire, I will instead fall upon the three of you--I apologize in advance for any injuries--so we will all present the smallest target possible. I will still take the brunt, but it will be a much smaller brunt. I am an…other sort of being, however. My duties were many. My family required protection and occasionally rescue from the supernatural as well as the natural. They were always stumbling into cursed groves and vengeful sidhe haunts and things, especially the children while they were learning spells. At least they were Druids, and not heroes." He boomed the last word as though it were not complimentary.

"You never cease to amaze--bloody HELL!" Eryl threw both arms in the air and screamed, trying to blast out the loudest bang since the big one, pushing his power to the point his lips peeled back from his teeth--and three eerie, eldritch shrieks echoed, as three Drakes peeled away, literally, in different directions, flaming like green Chinese sparklers on Independence Day as Eryl stood there with his arms crossed over his head in what looked like some kind of evocatory attitude. It had all taken perhaps three seconds total.

Mai glanced at him. "Save some for us."

"Fuck." Eryl dropped his arms, panting heavily and going to one knee, and neither Mai nor Morgan censured him; instead, they moved in closer in their triangular, outward-facing formation, Morgan turning a bit to raise the staff over Eryl, while he recovered.

"You've got the idea, Thomas," Mai said, scanning the foggy lower sky and the solidly dark upper, the blueness of twilight fading fast. "Just don't blow your own brains out. Precision, remember. Though you did have to hit three at once that time, so I can see just going for the big blow on your first try."

"I'm all right," he gasped, gulped, and then very firmly and definitively seized the hilts of his fallen weapons as he stood again. He was not doing any more of this barehanded shit. "I'm all right. Cru!"

"I am well, Wizard Thomas," Cruachan's boom told them all. "I can continue to shield you from the detritus."

"Don't you get in our way, either," Eryl said. "I don't want you catching the edge of anything we throw at them."

"Most of what you throw at them will not affect me, for reasons we both know. However, I will endeavor to obey your injunction; I suspect the enhancers the Ancient has prepared should not be tested, in terms of my invulnerability or lack thereof."

"I suspect the same. Watch yourself."

"You also, Wizard."

"We got four directions incoming," Morgan said, turning the staff slowly in his hands, a red light just beyond the staff's tip indicating the direction of each incoming Drake. "They're gonna come in three first and…wait, five directions. Send the last two while the three of us are dealing with the first ones--bet they're gonna veer off before they buy it like their friends did. Those short wings, they can turn on a tighter arc than any other draconian species, even if their altitude's low."

"I see the three," Mai said, though Eryl saw nothing but the continuing occasional bursts of green light distantly through the murk. "Okay, on my signal--I'm gonna take those three because we can't trust that they'll veer off, especially if we get the other two; even if they do, they'll just circle back, that tight turning radius. If--"

"Wizard Mai. I, Wizard Eryl, and Wizard Morgan can take the three decoy dragons; you are mostly likely to be able to take the two that are coming in faster."

"Cru, if you can't--"

"I can. But I'm afraid you may be pelted with Drake parts."

Eryl made Harry's serious "oh God no" face, but Mai only said "Do it. I've got the two coming in low--shit NOW!"

Suddenly green fire was racing into Eryl's eyes and he did his best to add a shield this time, not that he was sure anything he could come up with in that amount of time would be much help in the case of anything moving that fast, especially when he was distracted trying to do something very precise he'd only just learned he knew how to do.

The explosions were deafening, but Eryl didn't get hit with the fallout as badly as Mai, who was gory in the extreme. The chunks mostly fell off, but the blood remained, and it was as dark a red as human, black in the light. She stood straight, dripping, jaw solid but slightly clenched. "Your friend?" she said, giving Morgan the visual once-over. He didn't look thrilled, but he didn't seem hurt. He was doing a similar check with the staff as Mai had done.

"Cru!" Eryl bellowed, whirling. That was when he realized there was blood in his hair. "Damn--Cruachan!"

"Here," Cruachan answered. His eyes, glowing very brightly, appeared nearby. "If you will look toward the east tower, you will just be able to see, in this light, some of the remains of the Drake I dispatched."

He looked in the indicated direction. The Drake was--it was torn in half, neatly from throat to tail, with a neat four slices, looking like they'd been deliberately carved, along the tear. The head was cleanly severed and lying some feet away.

"I feel very unwashed," Cruachan said. His teeth were not showing. Neither were his claws. Neither was anything but his usual distortion, and his eyes.

Shit, Cru was Hannibal the Cannibal. "I should certainly imagine," he said "The rest of us aren't doing much better. Can you hang on for a while longer?"

"Of course. We have not yet defeated the enemy. It has simply…been a while."

"I know what you mean," Eryl said, some of the memories of battlefields Bob had supplied magical assistance in swimming in the back of his head. He didn't especially need them right now.

"Circle of six closing in," Morgan said suddenly. "They're not coming straight for us; tightening a moving formation around us. They likely won't either flame or dive until they can pick us out. Nobody do anything to give them something to aim for."

"Well I wasn't planning on it," Eryl snapped. The blades and scabbards of the weapons he was holding were blackened, just like the buckles of his leather carrying harnesses. "There are four of us; as yet, we can all take on at least one. Mai can take at least two--I'll not try for three, no matter what I did in a state of panic, but I'd bet I can take the extra."

"Bad plan," Morgan said, readjusting his grip over the silver inlay on the rowan staff. "We should take advantage of one of these focal enhancers. We could take the circle all at once."

"No enhancer yet," Mai said quickly. "Not for me or Thomas. We want them to know we can handle them without it--and that we have allies who can handle them without it. We go with your idea, Thomas. I'll take the first two visible. You the next two. Morgan, you take the fifth, and you--"

"Cruachan," he supplied for her, calmly enough.

"The sixth. By first I mean first visible, but what you get is what you--go!" She whirled and shot arcing power, evidently not ready for a more precise strike, against the first Drake that came looming broadside out of the mist--and at the second, which, by that time, was right on its tail as the circle closed in on them. Both reeled, shrieking and flapping hard to get distance from the burning, jolting pain. Arcing energy was sent at Mai; it never reached her, fanning into tiny branchlets of force inches from her body, and she barely seemed to acknowledge it.

Eryl's sword and poignard came up in a sweeping move, and though there was little to see--blue light, thin from the sword, and threadlike from the poignard--the reaction in the Drake was quite notable. It's mouth opened in a silent cry, its eyes seemed to disappear, their glow fading in and out, and it vibrated all over, as though in a seizure. It crashed to the roof and lay motionless, without a mark on it.

The Drake behind it veered fiercely for Eryl, flaming--but the flames were stopped a few yards away by an invisible wall that Eryl hadn't had time to raise. He lifted his sword and ran forward, yelling "Cruachan! Out of the way!"

The Drake, in its anger, had totally expended its reserve of gaseous banefuel against this inexplicable invulnerability--such total expenditure being a rare happening--and it would be at least forty-five seconds before it could either flame or fly again. Held back from a direct charge by a solid cut-and-thrust in the grip of a human who plainly knew how to use it, the Drake swept a wing that could have knocked Eryl thirty feet and right off the edge of the building if he hadn't dropped to a crouch on the balls of his feet and risen again in a heartbeat, avoiding the wing's lower edge.

"We don't have to do this," he shouted. "No one wants this. No one wants to hurt your--"

The Drake tried a double-overhand apple-smasher with both clawed fists; Eryl ducked gracefully to the side, almost too fast to see. All right, Mai, you've made your point, he thought, and took advantage of the millisecond of lowered, folded Drake hands at the bottom curve of the overhead swing to slash his poignard across the Drake's throat.

The Drake's eyes widened and it raised a hand to the gushing of heat down its front.

"I can still heal you," Eryl tried once more. "A simple matter--I've cut nothing but blood vessels." And that hadn't been easy, not as easy as on a human.

But he'd certainly done it; the Drake's intact larynx was demonstrated when it roared, and rushed him--and the cut-and-thrust caught it, impaling the Drake upward under the prominent breastbone and through the heart--bright, dancing currents of the energy of Eryl's disappointment and anger flashing along the hilt and blade, both the end he held and the end that protruded from the Drake's back.

With an easy, reflexive movement, he turned, swinging the great weight of the Drake by its own heft, and shoved the body off his sword with his boot, yanking the blade back low at the same time so that it would come out clean. The Drake fell backward and hit the roof with a thud, leaving Eryl's sword almost unbloodied, and the body--considering what it took to kill a Drake--almost unmarked.

"Very impressive," Came Morgan's voice. "All the way around. Bainbridge was good."

"Bainbridge didn't do that, I did," Eryl said bitterly, feeing his lashes thicken with salt wet, and shouldered past Morgan to where Mai was standing, looking stone-faced across the vast area of graveled rooftop. "You're all right?"

"Fine. Your semi-present friend?"

Cruachan answered for himself. "My opponent is dead," he said, again appearing only as very brightly glowing eyes. "I decided his generator needed recharging. He was apparently designed for a lower voltage."

They glanced around to where the fifth Drake lay still, convulsed in a rigor of shock, on the gravel.

They looked at Morgan.

"Mine's cooked--somewhere in the stratosphere," he said. "I think I blew the whole charge of one of the straight augmenters. I'm sorry, Ancient."

"We have other backups, and I can forgive you for this one. You've never worked with these."

He smiled at her, a real smile, and Eryl blinked, despite his anger and hurt and shell shock. He didn't care what he already knew from what Bob had been through. Killing people was horrible, even if they were horrible people. Morgan was saying "Yeah, you only just slapped them together."

"Hey, I never promised you this job was gonna be all company cars, expense accounts and dental included on the health insurance," she reminded him, smirking, and he smirked back.

Eryl suddenly realized that Morgan was using Mai's own staff. He'd never seen Mai with Morgan's staff/sword, but that could easily be because Mai was almost always barehanded, as Bob had usually been after he became as proficient as he had. Morgan and Mai, he suspected, were not nearly as lonely as they might seem to other wizards, relationships with everyone but each other notwithstanding.

"Oh, shit," Morgan suddenly said--interestingly, when Morgan said "Oh shit" his expression was identical to the one he used for "Good Morning"--and he suddenly held the staff out to Mai. "Ancient, tell me I'm reading this wrong."


	21. Chapter 21

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the characters and I don't own this story.

**_LOUD AND CLEAR! I DO NOT, HAVE NOT AND WILL NOT EVER OWN THIS STORY!_**

**This story is the property of Tang Guangzhen who was kind enough to give me permission to post this here. Any flames about that will be used to fry your ass.**

**Thank You**

* * *

Mai stood still, feet planted apart, gore dripping down her stonelike face, catching on a lower lid to fall from her eye like a black tear. "I'm sorry," she whispered coarsely, still expressionless. "I've made a serious miscalculation in the odds describing the general Drake response to this. There are more Drakes coming."

"How many more?" Eryl demanded.

"Not sure yet. I wish it mattered more; this is an excellent lesson in where either bad or incomplete intelligence will get you. There's at least one factor in the situation--or at least one false factor in my data--that I knew nothing about, and could not use to figure the probabilities. But from what we do know, if that has any relevance at all--I believe that we are not their main…they are, to put it bluntly, exasperated. They intend to kill or contain the rest of the fanatic cabal, and they certainly will not let us live, human wizards who can kill drakes, who witnessed them kill their own, and who have 'caused' this ridiculous mess in the first place. I know Drakes."

Eryl said "If you know Drakes, what do we do? What now?"

"These Drakes are not limited by wishing to defeat us with their own natural forms, their own natural strengths--they will use learned magics or their sheer numbers. There is nothing we can do, Thomas. I am sorry."

"Don't bloody well be sorry, for bloody bald god's sake, bloody think of something! We're wizards! Let's teleport out of here! Let's take the gravity express down to the ground and take the tunnels! Let's bloody goddamn run, you stupid staring--"

"Thomas." Morgan rested a hand on his shoulder. "These Drakes are too old, too powerful, and too close. If they cared enough about killing us, we'd already be dead. If we try to escape in any of the ways left to us, they will, before we can take more than a few steps. It's too late. She's right."

Eryl panted, and felt a topologically shifting furriness up against his side, Cruachan's comfort--and remembered the silver band under that sleeve.

"Oh God," he whispered to himself. "Will I just kill her too?"

"You will not," Cruachan said firmly. "You will not. I know this."

"Bob knows it, too," Eryl panted. "And…and Harry. All right. All right, I just hope--God, I hope we're all of us right." He crouched to set down his weapons, pulled his sleeve back, and activated the bracelet, which tingled. "Megare," he whispered. "I need you badly. Quick. Come help. And if you have any truly huge guns, bring them."

Mai and Morgan were watching him. "What are you doing?" Morgan demanded.

"Calling a friend," Eryl whispered, picking his weapons up. He wiped sword and poignard on his pants legs and resheathed both. "Be ready to run in just about any direction, all right?" They didn't answer, but Eryl decided it was a dumb thing to think he had to say under the circumstances anyway.

There was a rumbling under their feet, and he suddenly pushed them toward the edge of the roof, not knowing if that would help, but knowing that Megare would miss them if she could, and making that easier couldn't hurt.

The silvery circle appeared, taking up about half the massive building's roof (he was amazed, thinking about it, that it was this building she nailed--this wasn't the only surface or the only building she could have ended up at) still allowing for a diameter of many dozens of yards, and still vastly larger than the portal that Eryl and Cruachan had come through. The dead drakes and sundry other evidence of the battle were mostly undisturbed, between the edge of the circle and their position.

Then there was a whooshing flash of silver up from the ring and a shimmering curtain of light in the ring itself, looking like a round pool that took up most of the gigantic graveled roof.

She emerged slowly, like a 787 being towed out of a hangar. Her head came first, of course; a long, snaking red tongue wavered, tasting the air; the rest of the snout; cheekbones, eyes, the horn on the nose, scales of the throat…

"Oh my God," Eryl breathed.

By the time she had risen, vertically, halfway out of the depth-eliminating doorway, Mai was holding the staff, saying "The Drakes are standing off. I have a rough count--about three hundred of them."

"Bloody hell." He didn't know if he was saying it about the Drakes or…"Is that…"

"She is Y Ddraig Goch," Cruachan boomed. "She fought the White Dragon for years, eventually becoming trapped with it underground and repeatedly demolishing the foundations of Vortigern's new castle, until the boy Merlin told the king to release the dragons; they fought in the sky, and she was victorious."

"She's the--on the Welsh flag, there's a--she's the Welsh Red Dragon?"

"There are rumours she lives, or once lived, in or around lake Balan in central Wales. She is not considered 'dead' in the usual sense of the word, but she is, in a sense, 'gone' to them, except as a symbol. She represented the Briton people against the Angles, Saxons, Jutes and other Germanics."

"That's what she bloody meant by--oh, wow." Megare had emerged up to the midquarters, and she was much more dragonlike than Drakes were. For one thing, it would have taken about thirty of them to make one of her. She was built like a quadrupedal animal, not bipedal like the Drakes--she had forelegs, similar to her back legs but with a shallower hock jog, with feet that were reptilian and scaled, but shaped like a lion's, only with an opposable, heavily clawed back digit. She had wings, but they were batlike and obviously too small to support her in flight--Eryl's heart skipped; if she couldn't fly once the doorway's field released her, she had no chance. She'd be skeletonized in minutes like a cow in a river full of piranhas. The wings stayed motionless as she rose slowly higher. Her tail was long, looping, and ended with a triangle of muscle for grabbing. She also had deep-curved claws at the hocks of her legs.

"Do not be concerned about her wings," Cruachan said. "Do you remember her talents with visualized dactylation?"

"Of course, but--"

"Y Ddraig Goch does not 'fly', precisely. She levitates. She does not need any sort of aerodynamic situation operating in order to fly. Her wings are useful in fine steering at speed, with other incidental uses."

Eryl thought, then began to relax. That would give her a massive advantage over a creature that had to have lift happening, whether by planing, warpable wing, feather separation on the upstroke, or whatever, in order to keep it aloft. One to three hundred was still terrible odds, but if she could halt, hover, reverse, turn upside down, anything, and the drakes had to actually fly or fall to messy death…it cut down on the gap at least somewhat. And if she could still perform visualized dactylation in her draconian form, the Drakes hadn't a prayer, but he was fairly sure that she couldn't.

She emerged from the doorway's field, and it vanished without a sound or a puff. Her long tail unrolled and flexed as she floated there in the air, looking around. Obviously, she saw them, rotating in the air to face them; Eryl raised his sword to her in salute. She raised her head and trumpeted, a sound more like a huge French horn than anything else Eryl could come up with.

"She has a lovely voice," Cruachan commented. "None of this nasty screeching, as from the Drakes."

Eryl wisely chose not to answer; Mai and Morgan, figuratively holding each other up and staring, probably didn't hear. Mai said "It's her."

"I would tell you the name she goes by now, but I haven't her permission," Eryl said. Megare was drifting slowly toward them, which was a little unnerving; she was the size of that 787 Eryl had thought of earlier.

Cruachan vanished, and in a moment, the great red head tilted, her tongue rolling and unrolling smoothly out of her mouth, not dripping; it didn't really look much like a tongue. It resembled more the dry hide of a very smooth snake, or perhaps a much finer version of the skin of her own tail. It had a gripping triangle of muscle at the end, too. Her eyes, a dark gold striated heavily with black outward from the pupils, closed halfway; she was listening.

"Your friend has many talents," Mai said, still scanning around, keeping up on the Drake situation.

"He's her friend, too."

"Megare has a lot of friends," Mai said idly.

Eryl whirled on her.

"Relax," she said, eyeing him briefly. "I've known where you were all this time. I have no reason to disturb Megare. She does some of my work for me--not all unknowing, but I'm not in constant communication with her or anything--and letting her do it salves my conscience a little. I'm not worried about her; and I make sure no one else in my…communications net gets too interested in the details of her life, either. Most of it's her doing, but I put in a few stop orders here and there. I don't think anyone but me knows where her place really is."

Morgan seemed to…expand, and by his expression, he hadn't known about Megare--whether at all, or that with her was where Harry and Bob had been. But, as ever, he said not a word.

Eryl whispered to Mai "Did you…know--"

"I knew she couldn't hurt; I didn't arrange whatever sent you to her."

"But you know where--"

"Dragons all like it underground, or under the water. There are ice-dragons, and--"

"You deliberately--"

"Dammit, whatever you're planning on throwing some damned adolescent fit about, we have had that talk once and we will not be having it again. You know I realized that I was not going to be anybody's favorite person when I accepted this position, and you, at least for the sake of argument, accepted that it was a requirement of the position, considering the people who have to be controlled. Nobody says you have to like it. Listen: there's no picking and choosing. You can't be nice just to the nice, Dresden, Bainbridge, and whoever else you may be--it doesn't work that way. You know where it would eventually lead. Everyone is the same to me in that way--or it falls apart. You could be different; but that's a choice you haven't made yet. I have been tolerant, because I need you, but my tolerance ends if it becomes clear you're taking advantage--or pushing it too hard. I'd have known where you were by now, in any case. That signaller on your arm was obvious to me as being her work as soon as you arrived in Chicago. Pretty good signature randomization, though. Nobody else I know of could've seen through it." Her attention then turned away from him with such finality he could feel its departure.

Eryl took a shaky breath. The Dharmapala comment--how could he have missed the significance? Bob had not been kidding when he told Megare that he did not know the full capability of Mai's power. What Eryl desperately hoped was that Mai, bad as that looked right now, did not necessarily know the full capability of Megare's.

Suddenly, Megare rose into the air. Because she did not take off with a swish of wings, they weren't blown to the pit and back--but they did stumble a lot, because she rose vertically at what Eryl would have said was about sixty or seventy mph, accelerating fast; and the suction made their hair--what wasn't dripping with gore or generally not designed for it--stand on end.

"God help those Drakes, because I'm not going to," Morgan was heard to mutter, but aside from a smirk from Mai, whom he was steadying from the sudden wind with one hand as she continued her calculations for defense, should it come to it, there was no response.

"I don't think she'll kill them if she can help it," he said softly, quietly enough Mai and Morgan could both pretend they hadn't heard him.

The other Drakes who had arrived with the attack on Mai were dispersing rapidly; Eryl knew that now they were running from both their own kind and from this bloody huge chthonic dragon that'd appeared out of some magical nowhere. Eryl stood and watched silently as the green flares of the departing drakes sometimes joined in matched flight, visible in the cloudy gloom--and sometimes, a larger one would approach at a steep trajectory, below or above, much larger green glow shining--and the first, smaller glow would be extinguished.

He should not be standing here feeling horrible for people who were going to kill him mere moments ago. It was foolish. It was even questionable in a moral sense. Should he not be pleased to see his attackers defeated? He had been ready to do the same. He'd killed several himself.

He decided that he must be like Harry, or perhaps more like Megare, as she did not seem to have much anger left in her, at least that she had showed to him, Bob or Harry. Hers flared briefly, but Harry's could explode. In any case, no matter which of them he more resembled in the trait, he did not like mean people. It all just made him sad, and he wiped furiously at Harry's damned ever-tearing eyes. He wanted to help. Not kill.

"Are you hurt?" came Morgan's sonorous voice from behind his shoulder. He shook off the tears, sniffing his voice to normal and lifting his head as he turned. "No, not at all. Well, bruised, as we all are. But nothing serious. I…have a certain distaste for such circumstances."

Morgan actually half-smiled at him.

He smirked back. "I mean besides being covered in steaming Drake gore, which has only not brought up my last eight meals because I have Harry and Bob's memories, and while this is less than enjoyable, I have been drenched with far worse."

"Haven't we all." Morgan raised a brow at him, as if daring him to comment, and turned away again.

"Something's happening," Mai snapped suddenly. "It's not Megare, it's not a Drake or any group of them, it's not on any of my specific locator functions. I can focus augment and shoot it down--"

"No! We don't even know what it is yet! Isn't there enough dying all around us?"

"Eryl!" Mai yelled in exasperation, evidently pushed too far to remember his use-name, or to care. "We have to stop it because we don't know what it is! We can't afford--" she suddenly switched tactics. "What if it's something that could hurt Megare?"

"Is it registering as something that powerful?"

"It's registering in an area I don't even have complete scanners for. But cookie-cutter sharks aren't very big either, or powerful, and they can kill a whale if they hit it in the right spot. And Megare has her…paws full with about three hundred biting flies that shoot banefire trying to drive the ox insane right now."

"Megare will disengage if she must. She can; even if it leaves us to them briefly. Shield us! You can shield us, can't you? With your power, that must be one of your defensive options, more than one, you must have half a dozen different approaches and specific techniques for different attacks--"

"Sheilding will block my ability to gather crucial information, and this attack may not be the first unknown we--"

"We don't even know it's an attack--"

"It's not," said Tameriel, in his ear, as Eryl found himself being lifted up off the roof and away from the old power station at a healthy rate. He only realized this was happening as he got over the shock of the transition.

"Tameriel! What are you doing here?"

"Your curse. You're going to need it."

"I'm going to need the curse now? Won't it…well, won't it rather eliminate me until it's removed again and the multidimensional connections in my brain that keep Bob and Harry integrated but separable can be reinstated?"

"It won't exactly eliminate you--shit, that was close," Tameriel said, dodging banefire. "Stupid bastard saw me."

"The samite doesn't help." Hanging on to Tameriel's broad shoulders as he/she/it carried him in her arms, he peered back, but could see only darkness.  
Tameriel said "Oh, the samite's new. It's some English Christian thing, literature with holy visions--skanky blondes dressed in it delivering messages of purity" (she snorted) "to 'pious knights'" (she rolled her eyes here, so obviously Eryl could tell, even in his position) "and altars, with magical holy Christian relics, covered with it. I think the idea was that it was used where any earthly material was deemed inadequate by the writer. What with the new testament and the old bumping heads, we all got hit with a lot of surprise 'innovations', when we appear in certain areas or to certain people. I don't mind it with Bob, he can't help it, he's English and was literate when those stories were being written. Long story short, sometimes I forget about it. Sorry to bitch at you, it's just been a long week."

"I'm rather surprised you even can be here."

"It's my hour of the night tonight, remember? I'm in charge of myself for a while. I can be anywhere I want for a bit before I start having to explain myself. I'm just glad you people did this brain-dead thing while I could use it to save the three of you."

"Use it how? How can--well, perhaps if I shut up you'll tell me."

"I'm afraid I can't go into great detail, but I can tell you this; I trust Bob on it. We've known each other a long time, and I know what he can do. He can do this. I'm going to reapply the curse, but Bob will know what to do when the curse's projection forms, Harry retakes his body, and you--"

"…vanish?" Eryl wondered in a tiny voice. He had undertaken this knowing there was a good chance he wouldn't survive it, but he'd been expecting to find that out later rather than sooner, when they had retrieved all the information they could on Bob's curse, and, therefore, what it was safe and possible to do for all of them.

"No. You won't vanish. You'll go out--like you do when you sleep--but I believe in Bob. You'll be back."

"Oh, no, he's not going to--"

"He won't have to resort to the Black. The only thing is that there's going to be a chthonic dragon and a Drake banefire fight with shifting sides and loyalties taking place over your head while some pretty deep and serious magical operations go on."

"We can't go inside?"

"I'm afraid not, not far enough inside to matter. That would take too much time--there's an aspect that's sort of rushed, here."

"I suppose I've no choice then."

"Eryl, believe me. Bob won't let you down. I know you can't be expected to work it all out right now, it'd take concentration and time you don't have, but Bob's got it already. He'll have Harry's help. And if anything does happen…" Tameriel sighed. "Well, you were born in an unusual way, but you're a live soul, Eryl. I'll be there. Though I'll have to get the hell out of the way before these bastard little buzz bombs, which are focusing on my power aura--"

"--or perhaps your samite--"

"--are drawn to the area by following me. Okay, I'm gonna let you down where you need to be, and reinstate the curse. Don't be afraid. I won't be far, Bob knows what he's doing, and Megare would never let anything near the area where Bob's working once she knows what's happening."

"How will she know that?"

"I'm going to tell her. Then I'm going to circle like a maniac and try to keep away from these fucking insane Drakes. I won't head back out until I know you're going to be all right and don't need me any longer. Okay, bit of a dive. Here we go…"

It happened as she said. The roof approached at what seemed way too high a rate of speed, they passed over the heads of Mai and Morgan, who watched them flash past with gratifying looks of consternation visible through the blood drying on their faces, and immediately started after them at a run that didn't even begin to keep up with Tameriel's glide, but should catch up pretty quick once she'd slowed enough to drop him.

Her wings beat hugely as she hovered. He hadn't been expecting that. They attached only a bit above her center of gravity, just at her hips and lower back, but they still weren't aerodynamic--then he remembered she was an angel. She was as she'd been conceived, or perhaps being inhuman, she was aerodynamic, though for such wings to work on a human, the breastbone that anchored the wings that would have a span to lift something the weight and size of a human into the sky would have to extend six feet in front of her.

Then he wondered if that was going to be his last thought as he felt the roof under him. Apparently part of her heavy wing-beating was blowing the gravel that covered the roof aside so he wouldn't have to lie on it. Kind of her.

"Tameriel--"

"It isn't going to happen now, Eryl. But if it ever did, for any reason, I'd tell everybody what you want me to tell them." Tameriel kissed him, and he instantly felt as though the world had become a very, very happy place. All was well. Safely rest. God was nigh.

"Here we go," Tameriel murmured just as Mai and Morgan caught up. She opened her hands; two ghostly bands glowed there, with symbols glowing from the sides as though they'd been etched into the light. She "closed" the bands, which disappeared, either invisible or gone, on Eryl's wrists.

Suddenly, Bob appeared, lying next to Harry.

Mai stared, dropjawed. "What have you done?!" she demanded of the seven-foot Angel. Never let it be said that Mai was any kind of coward.

"Wake up, Bob," Tameriel said, laying a hand on Bob's head; she did the same to Harry.

Bob's eyes fluttered open. "Oh. Oh, my--" his eyes closed, and his face tightened in concentration. "Tammy."

"You got it?"

"I've got it."

"Got what?" said Harry, sitting up groggily. He blinked awake and turned to Tameriel. "Why did you--oh my God. Oh my God."

"More like, Oh my buddy the angel who gives enough of a shit to have been watching your baby boy since he got to Chicago. You both know what to do?"

"We know what to do, but without the--"

"Bob's got it."

"He does?" Harry turned to Bob.

"Barely. I've got it by the skin of my teeth. We have to move fast, Harry."

"Which of these, then?"

"One that's intact, all there, but a mostly randomized brain, so one of those that Eryl hit, or that Cruachan--"

"That one over there. It's one of the ones Cruachan got."

"You're the better healer, Harry. You'll have to give me the slate to work with, and you'll have to do it quickly."

"I'm on it." Harry staggered up, and started for the Drake that Cruachan had killed via a quick electrocution.

"I'm gonna get scarce after I talk to Megare, or I'm gonna bring every Drake here down on you," Tameriel said, and with a single beat of her huge white feathered wings, she was rising, and quickly out of sight.

Mai looked at Bob. "You have angels for friends? I thought you were a Black magician."

"Discuss it later, he's busy," Harry snapped, he had his head down, and said "No good, one of you get over here, I can't heal what's dead. We don't have to resurrect it. Just start its basic functions; get its brainstem and basic systems working and leave it brain dead." There was hesitation, and he exploded "Shit, I could do that much with a crash cart! The Drake itself is irredeemably dead, all right?! Too many of its dedicated synapses have been randomized to bring it back to anything like itself. Now get over here and help me before Eryl dies! Bob can't hold on to his pattern forever!"

"Yes I can," Bob said, quietly determined, teeth gritted. "He saved our lives, trusting that when the time came we would save his if we could at all. I will hold his pattern in my brain 'til the effort destroys my magical capability and perhaps my sanity, and you don't want that, Mai, do you?"

Mai muttered something, taking her staff in a firm grip and hurrying to Harry and the dead Drake. "Dresden. Clear it." Harry moved so he was no longer touching the body; she touched the staff to the Drake, and a great jolt rocked it. She touched it again, and its muscles begin to relax.

"I'm regenerating its peripheral nervous system," she said tightly. "It was damaged."

"The central system?"

"Spine, some damage."

"Can you regenerate it?"

"Yes, but it will be virgin tissue. It will conduct signal, perform all other essential functions, but it will contain no information of its own. It will have to reform that over time, if for some reason it should have the opportunity…" she raised her brows at him, tilting her head back. "Just what are you planning to do?"

"Nothing that breaks a single law of magic. Now help me here! Check his brainstem."

"Some burning. I'm repairing it. Nothing above the brainstem was damaged, precisely, so much as scrambled--Drake brains are designed on a slightly different, less fragile matrix."

"That's all right. Eryl's personality's designed on a different matrix too."

"You're going to--you don't even know if that's--"

"It's his only chance," Harry said softly, and felt the deep thump of the heart begin to increase as he healed the damage of briefly being dead--pooled blood and other fluids, collapsed organs, tissue dehydration…his hands glowed, and he bowed his head, the glow spreading, over the skin of the drake, over Harry. "I'll have to pull some water…from the air…this is his only chance to live as a sentient creature, who works magic, who is…can be…human, there's no time to find a suitable human body...might never…"

"Harry."

"I hear you, Bob. Morgan. Help him."

Morgan took Bob by the upper arms and basically lifted him up and walked him over. Bob was no lightweight, but Morgan was some refined sort of giant. He lowered Bob to his knees next to Harry, by the Drake's head.

The rictus of death had eased completely from the Drake's face. The fierce brow ridge was in normal evidence, but it appeared to be simply asleep.

"Help me, Harry. You can get in, get him in, more easily…"

Harry joined hands with Bob and leaned over the Drake, panting softly. Soon they both were.

"I can't hold it," Bob whispered at one point.

"I've got it," Harry soothed, and they were silent again, for a long time.

Harry whispered "I don't know if we can…"

"We may not have to."

Quiet again.

Mai looked up and around. "It's been--how long? Why aren't we being attacked? Oh, yes; the angel. Megare is fighting the Drakes off us, and we're under the protection of an angel. I don't believe this."

"We're under the protection of a dragon," Morgan reminded her, with a significant look. "That's how I choose to see it."

"I still don't believe this. It started out pretty simple, but now there are responsible Drakes around, and they're going to want information on whatever we've got cooking here with a huge chthonic dragon and a Jewish Angel involved."

The Drake stirred.

Mai and Morgan stared, instantly shutting up.

Harry was lying full length by the Drake with his arm over it, holding himself pressed close; it was very large compared to him, of course, but human enough in form that the position held them well together. He reached forward and gripped the Drake's forearm.

The Drake's other big, clawed hand came up and touched it, covering it.

At that point, Bob collapsed, falling to the side, whether by design or luck not landing on the Drake's head. He panted, and his head obviously pained him horribly, but he was conscious.

"I've got you," Harry whispered. "It's all right…I've got you…" The gold effulgence rippled over them both, and began to lap up over Bob. He did nothing to stop it, but did not seem to be encouraging it, either. He probably wasn't in shape to do much of anything.

Suddenly a hissing cough emerged from the Drake's mouth.

"Don't try to talk," Harry said; he was weaving, taking deep breaths to get the words out, as he lifted his head. "You won't be able to talk like…like a human at first. But you will. You will have a human body, you'll have…any kind of body you want. When you're…" he panted. "…settled. When you're well."

"Harry, stop," Mai said, dropping to her knees. "You're way past what you can afford to spend." Gold effulgence flooded from her hands now, rolling in quick ruffles and swoops of light, much more quickly than Harry's, encompassing the Drake, Harry, and Bob. She remained outside.

"But can you afford it?" Morgan demanded. "Right now?"

"Healing is easy," Mai shrugged. "Usually. And has it ever occurred to you that a Drake on our side could be an unprecedented advantage? In ways beyond counting at the moment?"

Morgan started to retort, then stopped. He paused, obviously considering, tapping his leg with the sword-staff he'd drawn earlier when the Drake began to show signs of waking.

To Harry's astonishment, she caught his eye…and winked.

Harry thought that might be a good time to pass out for just a little while. He tried not to land across Eryl's middle. The kid wasn't used to this body, it didn't work all that great yet to begin with, and he didn't want to get clawed.

Bob, making a soft moaning noise, but one of relief rather than pain, sat up slowly. "I fear I won't be myself again for a time yet, my dear Ancient, but I can join you in--"

"Shut up, sit there, and heal, you crazy dead necromancer," Mai said, expressionlessly. "I don't even know how its working on you, though I suspected it might, though Harry if no other way. All the ways you're dead seem to be convenient ones now. I was sure that only worked in amateurish stories until this."

"You're too cynical, my friend."

"I said shut up and heal."  
"Shutting up as ordered, Ancient." Bob gently pulled Harry into his lap. "It is very nice to hold your own body with your own face again, Harry, even if without that mangy scruff," he whispered, and kissed Harry's lush mouth softly. He shifted a little so Eryl's back-sheathed cut-and-thrust wouldn't poke him in the appendix, if he had one, when he leaned down to do so.

"Mm," Harry smiled, his eyes not opening.

"Rest a little, love. We still have a few moments."

"S'Ryl?"

"We cannot do a complete check yet. Mai is still healing us all, which is why you feel so content with everything, as I do right now."

"Mai." Harry smiled.

"Yes, Mai. I'm very fond of her at the moment as well."

"I'm gonna be sick," Mai muttered.

"Now, now. Nothing that would disturb the healing. Remember--zen mind, beginner's mind," Bob said, but ruined the effect by smiling again.

"Fuck Zen, I'm Chinese, you moron," she said, "from a part of China that hasn't existed in millenia. You wanna know about Lao Tsu--hell, knew him from the ground up. I can tell you stories. I was the reason he left court. I was his one unteachable case." She was desperately trying not to smirk. "I'll give you the Wang Chi nitty gritty. Oh, he was all Wu Chi in public, but he had a total hardon for bipolarity."

Bob was giggling while Morgan looked halfway between amused and half like he'd rather be anywhere else. She might be out of the main radius of the healing, but she was generating it, and affected by it. "But that guy Confucius. NOBODY is that anal without a reason. Turns out he had one. Mencius, the asswipe who followed him around writing down every word he said. Reason Confucius put up with that, too--Mencius had these Tibetan llamas, and, well, Confucius was also a little more fond of llamas than most people are of livestock, even expensive imports…especially bad-tempered livestock. Llamas, man, they don't wanna be your friend. Or anything else. I think it was part of the thrill."

Morgan smacked a hand to his face, then quickly removed it and retuned his hearing, through sheer discipline, to monitor the sky and their surroundings. He might as well be worth something during this little operation. Bob was cackling openly and holding Harry carefully so he wouldn't get bounced around, and neither of them would get repeatedly rammed by Eryl's sword in the process.

Suddenly the Drake began to quiver; they were all silent and focused at once, but the quivering looked voluntary, almost, as it folded its hands and shrugged its shoulders. The weird whickering noises, though, had them concerned.

"Can he breathe?" Morgan asked.

"He's breathing, breathing hard. I think he's laughing," Bob said, his eyebrow rising.

"Do Drakes laugh?" Morgan wondered.

"This one's trying," Mai said. "All right. Move back. If he's conscious and strong enough, I'm going to do a deep scan. That'll put him back out…and Bainbridge, if you're feeling up to it, I've never deep scanned a live Drake before."

"Of course not," he said, nodding perfunctorily. "You'd never had occasion to heal one before. I can assist you; I'll just…come along, and point things out."

"That'll be about right." She extended a hand to him, and he took it; she lay her other against the Drake, and the gold flowed from them again, but more contained, traveling around the Drake's body.

Harry quickly scooched around in front of the Drake's closed eyes, alarmed at how dizzy the brief movement made him. "If he opens his eyes," he said. "No matter what Tameriel said, this is gonna be…rough…"

Bob sighed. "I'm afraid I must agree. I'm sorry, my boy. I hope this isn't too much for you." He closed his own eyes again.

"Wait, I just thought of something," Harry said, rubbing his face violently with one hand, trying to scratch up scruff that wasn't there. "Where the hell is Cru?"

Just then a shadow blocked out the stars, moving slowly overhead, like a silent spaceship in a science fiction movie. From somewhere overhead came the booming call, completely unrestrained this time, of "EIREANNNN GGGGO BREAAAA!"

Harry slumped in relief. "At least he's not hurt."

"Doesn't sound like it," Bob agreed.

The great shadow loomed lower, then landed, about twenty feet away, still too close for comfort for anything that big, especially a dragon.

Suddenly, it was gone.

Just vanished, as if it had never been there. In the dark, the transition was easier to deal with.

"What the--"

"She's still here, Dresden," said Mai. "I can feel her."

Harry could feel Cruachan. But where the hell were they?

Slowly, into the light, limped a tiny, naked woman, leaning heavily on a gigantic, slope-browed, saber-jawed and saber-toothed, shoulder-humped, prehistoric-looking black-shag-furred greatcat-beast twice her height. The beast was blood-covered, matted and dripping, and its unbelievable teeth and all four sets of claws were crusted. The fur might've been singed; it was impossible to tell. The woman was burned in at least a dozen places that were visible, one of her eyebrows was fried off along with a burn to her face, and half her hair was raggedly missing in ashy grey shortened and absent patches, with blistered scalp showing through. Those injuries might not have been much in her draconian form, but Harry doubted he'd be conscious if he were her now.

"Oh, God!" Harry leaped up and fell down, felt Morgan's hand close around his arm, and for maybe the first time Harry blessed Morgan and all his big-ass kindred as the Warden hauled Harry bodily along with him to where Megare and Cruachan could be seen at the edge of the gold healing light. Morgan wasted no time, dropping Harry with some minor care and hoisting Megare in his arms--he could have done it with one--and carrying her with rapid strides back toward where all the healing was going on; deep-scan at the moment, which she would need; transformation got rid of some injuries, didn't touch others, and moved others; Megare could have internal banefire burns, which did not respond to traditional burn healing methods. The stuff was like magical napalm, beyond the burning of the fire itself.

Harry leaned on Cruachan's gigantic form, not asking how it got that way; Harry would have known Cruachan if you stuffed the wizard's ears, pinned his nose, tied his hands and put a bag over his head. "Cru," he panted. "I am so glad to see you, buddy. But shit, you look--uh--"

"Wizard Dresden," Cruachan boomed, knocking Harry to the gravel. "Oh dear. My apologies. I must remove this charm--if you would assist me--that is, if you can stand easily," Cruachan boomed again, and Harry made "okay, okay, I'm getting up, just shut up until I'm vertical" motions with a wincing expression and one hand held up in entreaty as he got his feet under him. "Okay, lemme reach…there, this thing?"

"That thing indeed."

"I can understand you. Why did you yell in Irish? Thought something had happened to your translator."

"I can always speak in Irish if I so wish," Cruachan told him, rumbling dangerously, and Harry's very bowels quaked with vibration.

"If you say so," he said. "Wha--hey. You're you again."

"Yes. That charm focuses all of me into one timespace plane set--yours."

"That's why you got so--"

"Crushed and small. Yes. But apparently it was what Wizard Megare needed to help me keep the Drakes off her hindermore parts. Rather than using her tail as a weapon, she held me securely in it and used me instead. There." The charm just sort of disappeared, chain and all; there was a little rattle and thunk as Cruachan apparently deposited it wherever he usually kept it. "I may now take the time to remove these blood deposits--"

"You were never worried she might…drop you accidentally, if she got hurt or anything?"

"Wizard Dresden. Please. You are speaking of our friend."

"Oh, right, warrior ethics and stuff, gotcha. Um, speaking of our friend…we better get on over and see how…um…how Eryl, and Megare, and Bob are doing…"

"How are you doing?"

"Maybe…" Harry weaved heavily. "…I could rest a little…"

"Maybe I will carry you," Cruachan said firmly, and Harry knew no more for a little while.


	22. Chapter 22

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the characters and I don't own this story.

**_LOUD AND CLEAR! I DO NOT, HAVE NOT AND WILL NOT EVER OWN THIS STORY!_**

**This story is the property of Tang Guangzhen who was kind enough to give me permission to post this here. Any flames about that will be used to fry your ass.**

**Thank You**

* * *

He woke up slowly and fairly comfortably, feeling freshly healed, but unfortunately without Megare and Bob to roll over into. He was dressed and lying on a sofa.

Outside, light flooded the waters of the Mediterranean.

"M'gare?" he managed, a whine of puzzlement.

"Wizard Dresden is awake."

And hello to you too, Cruachan, Harry thought.

"My darling," came a much softer and more supple voice, and Harry sighed as his mouth was kissed. Somebody had taken that damn leather bondage gear off him, too--Eryl's weapons--and he suspected it had been the ghost. He was dressed in his own clothes.

"Are we…"

"We are as we were. And as we apparently will remain, according to the data we've received from Mai. Further explanations can wait until you've recuperated a little, except to say that everyone is, or will be, well enough. Mai and Morgan were no worse than disgustingly gory, and a bit power-drained--as were you and Cruachan and Megare, of course--"

"Megare!"

"Mai and I healed her with great tenderness and care. I dressed her comfortably--the same way I did you, that time--and she woke, and brought us here. And she has been sleeping in her own bed, though she's with Eryl now."

"Where are…Morgan and…Mai…"

"We can communicate with them at will. Through Eryl's little device, though it no longer has to be wired into his head, naturally. So Mai modified it."

"Figures she'd know how."

"Mai is an engineer of surpassing skill with these spells, you know that. She is now attempting to beat the idea of Eryl into Morgan's head with rather less sophisticated technology. A stick, perhaps."

"Eryl!" Harry sat up. Suddenly, a massive platter full of food was plunked into his lap. Cruachan grinned at him. Bob grinned at Cruachan. "Your timing could not be more perfect, my friend."

"I do try."

"Eat, Harry. Mai said, as she was repairing several things beyond your power--I'm not surprised; that thoroughly, though recently, dead is beyond most people's power--so she could reanimate basic body functions, most were surprisingly intact. Cruachan killed with deadly accuracy and no waste."

"That time, I was able to," Cruachan said, sounding as though he were taking the comment as an analysis rather than a compliment or an insult. "It turned out quite fortunately."

"Eryl is sleeping. Megare can communicate with him, and has. She knows what has happened. Before he could become upset, as he'd have every right to be, she sent him deeply to sleep. He will settle into his new brain and nervous system over the course of a normal Drake sleep cycle, which is somewhat longer than human."

"That's the thing, Bob. He's human. Sure, Drakes can use a human form, and sure, I agreed with this 'cause I couldn't think of another blessed way to keep him alive and thinking at all. And this way he can have a human body, if he wants. But…it's gonna change him, isn't it? He's…he's not human any more. He's a Drake."

"I daresay the Drakes who find out about the change will say he is not a Drake any more, but a human. And he was never a real human, my darling. Not like we are. He is a human consciousness, however, and yours is a human body that was hosting him."

"That's what I mean--okay, so he's something in between, which I'll still never know how you managed that. Or any of it. The point is he'll change. It's not that I can't stand that, it's that I don't know if he can stand it--that's what I'm saying here. A human concsciousness in a Drake brain…"

"He may not change as much as you think. Drake brains and attendant systems are nearly identical to human in their functions and the support of synaptic pathways. Even the gland secretion is bizarre;y similar, so much so that it doesn't really…seem to have been designed to run a Drake body, though obviously they do so with no trouble. It's true that the rest of their physiology, as it would have to be, is--for a reptilian species--bizarrely similar to ours as well. Strong internal thermostat and temperature re-regulation, for example, which would be necessary for the banefire. There is taxonomical argument about what specific class of being they are--whether they should be classed with the draconian species at all. There are too many differences that, in any nonmagical animal, would place them in a category much closer to human--near-mammalian, at the very least."

"And all that means…."

"It means that the trauma and adjustment will be considerable. But he survived the trauma and adjustment of his own birth, which would have been too much for most people, with barely an eyeblink. He is…like you, when you were young. Perhaps like me then, so much longer ago, too. So incredibly curious that nothing is truly frightening, or not more frightening than intriguing--and nothing is truly strange. Only unknown, only undocumented. Eryl will come through this."

"When do you think he'll wanna…experiment? His magic, his shapeshifting?"

"He already has, a bit, though not on purpose. He was lying there asleep, and shifted a bit, and shimmered, and became…well, visually speaking, you. He was probably dreaming. He shifted back to Drake form soon after."

"Wow. I hope he finds someone better than me to look like."

"I hope he does too, but not because there is anyone better." Bob kissed his cheek. "I just don't know if I could survive two of you, with one of them not you."

Harry nearly choked on a grape. "I was--" gulp, "--kidding about that." But he looked curiously at Bob, smiling a little. "You interested…?"

"Well, it was a joke at the time. Now it's real, and now we have to see about making him all he can reasonably be in this time in Megare's safe home, before any more joking takes place." He kissed Harry again and stood, lithely, without using his hands. Harry sighed. Bob sure had had it together even in his apparent fifties, when most guys Harry knew were running to pasty--but then, Bob had been both an athlete and a sorcerer.

"Finish what you can of that, while I go check on my other charges. Rest, in the meantime. I do seem to recuperate more quickly than you do, so long as you aren't violently under the weather. I can feel your present lassitude, though, so rest." He lifted a hand to Harry's hair. "Have I ever told you how easy it is to resist the pull of the Black, as long as you're in my life in any capacity at all?"

"No, but I'm gonna cry now." Harry laughed, grinning at his food, but his eyes did tear more than usual.

"Oh, my darling." Bob wiped his eyes for him, trialing the back of a finger at the corner of each. "M'anam, cuisle mo chroi. My soul, pulse of my heart." He petted Harry's cheek once, then obviously forced himself to turn away and head for one of the hallways.

"It is of great beauty, this feeling you have."

Harry nearly dropped his food; when Cru was quiet, you could sorta forget him. He was sitting at the foot of the couch. "Yeah, I kinda gotta agree with you on that, buddy." He popped in a cheese and cracker sandwich and munched; a bit dry. He sipped wine.

"I doubt the present situation could have come about without your feeling."

"That's what Mai said too," Harry shrugged, fooling with some sliced meat to get it in a stack with a tomato slice and some more crumbly cheese.

"You do not resent her?"

"Oh, I resent being used, I think everybody resents that, but there are other ways to do what she did, get what she wanted, she could've left us out of it…and then in a weird way it's flattering. Maybe we gave her the best odds, or the best odds of getting her what she wanted in more specific ways, I don't know. All I know is, I've got Bob, and while he wants me and I'm alive, nothing can take him from me. And I want it that way, and now I have it that way. I don't feel like getting pissed off right now. Sometimes…I think Mai gets tired of being such a total bastard. She said she does it because she has to. I don't know how much of what she said to me was lines she was feeding me 'cause she knows me--called me a marshmallow to my face--and how much was true, but it's not implausible. And I saw some stuff it would've been damn hard to plan."

"She saved the Drake body for Wizard Eryl as well."

"She had a pretty major selfish motive for that, but I'll give her that one, too, 'cause I know she's still fighting Morgan about it, and I bet she and Morgan are the only people either of them are close to in any real way. I dunno. I'll never, you know, just totally trust her. But maybe if she'll stop whacking me around I can learn to think of her as human, you know?"

"Well, she is human…"

"Unlike some folks, apparently, that I did trust and that aren't," he nodded, "but I think by Megare's lights she told the truth. She's not a shapeshifter. All dragons of her type have a human form if they have any other form at all. She was telling us that she was human, as human as we were. There she was, human. I think she said what she meant, that she thought she was being perfectly clear. I think she wondered why we kept asking."

"More than likely," Cruachan pondered boomingly. "Language of any kind is not her forte."

"No," Harry sighed, and smiled. "Artificial language, random language, of any kind--every worded language, no matter what you word with, is random if you go back to the very beginning, no intrinsic reason for the patterns. Or the lack of 'em."

* * *

Bob approached the hammock slung in Eryl's gym. It was about twice the size of a human hammock and made of much sterner stuff, like a good gauge hempen rope. It was in Eryl's gym for two reasons; it was a familiar place, and it was convenient to hang the hammock there, and had plenty of room.

Megare was in there, dressed in a scrap of red wound around her somehow. Her clothing was sketchy since the dragon. She hadn't spoken a word to anyone but Bob, either, though she understood everyone. Bob was dead again, and she could sometimes pick out words from him to use. She was curled in a corner on a pile of mats. She was healed, but they'd left her hair; regrowing it would have been an unacceptable energy expense in the state she was in, especially since it could be done later. But she hadn't done anything with it. It still hung burned and uneven and gone in some places. She looked up at Bob when he walked in, and smiled a little; he went to her and crouched down, leaning down to kiss her gently. "How do you feel?"

"Same."

"It'll be a while until you reacclimatize, I know, but until you start to feel more normal in that body, let me know if anything feels too strange, all right? It's only in stories that dragons switch back and forth from human to dragon form with impunity of viewpoint."

She nodded, smiling a little again. He wanted to pick her up and comfort her, but it probably wouldn't feel anything to her yet but odd.

"Eryl," she said. "sleep. And wake."

"He's asleep, but only lightly. He's waking up," Bob tried.

She nodded. "Yes."

"Well, it's been more than enough time for a Drake to have an extra-restful sleep; perhaps we should wake him. It might be less traumatic than waking on his own and finding himself in that body all of a sudden, even though he was expecting it when he went out." Bob went to the hammock and started to climb on--it was stretched more like a catching net for trapeze performers--then decided against the angle he was at and went around to the top, by Eryl's head.

He climbed on; Eryl, predictably, made little hack-hack-snort sounds. He moved restlessly.

Bob caught his head, holding it facing away from him. "Eryl, my boy. Wake up, please. We need to check on you."

Eryl wiggled a little more, then suddenly a blast of banefire shot across the room--away from Bob, who had made sure to be behind Eryl at this point. The blast didn't hit anything.

"Try not to do that, lad," Bob said. "It's me, holding you, here. Now, you can't speak English easily in your current form, though some Drakes can do it. But you changed to a human form, Harry's, while you were sleeping. It's a very natural thing for you to do, doesn't require a spell. It's just like walking, for a human. Don't examine your body too closely for now. Think about being human. It should be easy, nothing to it, like drawing breath," Bob spoke gently, singsong, soothing. His voice seemed to do the trick. Eryl just sort of seethed, moved, flowed in his hands, and then Bob was holding a naked Harry look-alike.

He spoke. "That was easy," he said, sounding stunned.

Bob smiled. "Glad to hear it. It should be easy; it's a common and natural ability Drakes have. They are fondest of their own forms, of course, and most often wear them--but they could as easily wear any form they liked. I'm willing to bet you'll like human ones."

"Bloody, of course I will." He struggled, but couldn't sit, the hammock hampered him. "Help me?"

He was lifted--not by Bob's hands--into the air, and didn't even peep; he only smiled, as he drifted over the edge of the hammock and down to the floor to his feet. He looked around and saw Megare, sitting in a little pile on the mats in the corner. Her appearance made his face fall. "Oh, my--oh, my dear--"

"She'll be all right eventually," Bob said, swinging easily down from the strong reinforcing rope at the edge of the net by bending over it, grabbing it in both hands and flipping over, planting his feet on the floor. "These transitions are harder for larger dragons than most people think. They are not Drakes."

"Obviously. I want…may I…"

"Don't touch her yet, my boy, unless she touches you, and no more than she does. And don't expect her to speak to you. She can talk to me, a little. But she'll understand you, even if you don't say anything to her."

"Yes. Feelings, and concepts. I remember." He went and sat on the mats near Megare, who smiled at him and reached out to pet his face a little. He petted her face similarly, controlling the same urge Bob had, and said "I'll…I'll be fine, too. I just need…to get used to this."

She nodded, smiling a fond and maternal smile. She petted him again, then folded her hands and seemed to shrink into herself a bit.

"I'll take care of Eryl for now, milady," Bob said, coming up to crouch near them and put a hand on Eryl's shoulder. "You should rest again, I think."

She looked a little sad.

"Would you like me to come with you?" Bob asked, very softly.

She looked up at him quickly, saying nothing, but the entreaty was plain.

"Then I will do so. Eryl, Harry is in the main room. I think you're oriented enough now to get some clothes and meet him there. Cruachan is there too, and he'll see you're fed."

"Yes, he certainly will." Eryl smiled, glanced back at Megare, who gave him a brief smile, and got up, heading for the door and out.

Bob watched him go. "We must help him come up with a standard human form he likes that doesn't look exactly like Harry. I can't take that for long."

She grinned.

"Should we tell him he's a completely functional hermaphrodite in his natural form, and that if he transformed to a human female, she'd be quite functional reproductively?"

"Will know."

"You're probably right. Since he has a Drake brain that features hardwired information that a human's doesn't, he will likely realize it on his own. We must remember--he may prefer human appearance, but he isn't human. It would be thoughtless of us not to remember. In any case, it won't bother him that much, I shouldn't think. It's natural to him now. If he were still human, of course, it could be terribly traumatic, but--well, let's get you to your room. You can rest, and I'll read up on Drakes and on the information Mai gave us." He picked her up, gently and easily; she wrapped her arms around his neck, and he carried her out, walking paw-footed like a cat so as not to give the ride even a brief bobble.

* * *

"Hello."

Harry looked up; he'd been lying on a floor cushion with a pillow, staring out the "window" at the light on the sea, and the many colors of the season changing in the Mediterranean.

"Uh…hi, Eryl. You got a human form and stuff already?"

"It was surprisingly easy. I did it in my sleep, I think, if what I remember is…dreams. Bob soothed me along. He's right. It's like walking, or breathing. You don't know how you do it. Well, you don't think about how you do it. You just do it."

"That's convenient. But, um…I'm glad shapeshifting's so easy for you, 'cause I don't know how I'd feel about havin' another me running around my place."

Eryl, in a white t-shirt that was actually white and a pair of jeans, the dark blue material of the legs fitting easily over his glove leather boots, sat cross-legged on a cushion next to Harry. "Your place?"

"Well, hell, you're barely born. You gotta get used to yourself. All those memories in your head--and all this new stuff to learn about yourself, bein' a Drake and all. Bob and I are responsible for you, we created you, and we're not gonna dump you--we don't wanna dump you, c'mon, we love you. Besides, Megare isn't in any shape to take care of you, and I wouldn't try to fob you off on her even if she was."

"Megare--" Eryl's fists clenched. "She did that because--I called, and now--"

"Megare is what she is, and she did something natural to her. Without that, we'd all be dead and so would Mai and Morgan, and all hell would be breaking loose right now. It's gonna take her a little longer to get used to being human again than it takes her to get used to being in her draconian form. It's not an easy transition for her type of dragon. A large part of it is the matter gathering, processing, and then the dispersal processing. It's a big deal for them, way bigger than for you. It just doesn't work the same way."

"I can see that," Eryl sighed, staring at the carpet.

"Stop it," Harry said softly, putting a hand on Eryl's shoulder. "Just stop. She loves you, and me, and Bob and even Cru. She did it for all of us and she is a big, kickass dragon. The burning and injuries were no bigger a deal to her than they would have been to any big kickass dragon. You're only horrified now 'cause you're seeing this little tiny human. You saw her, when she and Cru came back, didn't you? She's strong as hell. After the transition back to human form, and even that hurt, she was walking. I was sure Cru would have to carry her. Don't worry. This is something she does. She's gonna be fine."

"If it were Bob…"

"Okay, I'd be a head case. But you'd be saying the same things to me, wouldn't you?"

Eryl smiled. "Yes, I suppose you're right, at that."

"Listen; we're gonna be here for a while. For Megare, and for you. It's safe here. We can communicate with Mai if we need to, and we probably will. But we're staying here for now."

"Won't this put a bit of a kink in your practice?"

Harry smiled. "A bit of one, maybe, but Megare's place…is unusual. Obviously, but…it can be…taken out. Out of the world, out of time…Bob tried to explain it to me. You've got his memories; you'd probably get it if he explained it to you, but I doubt I can make it make sense for you. In any case, we won't be getting back to Chicago too long after Mai summoned all the area wizards back and contacted the European councils, telling them to call off the search--the threat had been neutralized."

"Has it been?"

"It's a chance she's taking. If it works out--and she has reason to believe she can trust 'the marshmallow' to hold up his end and help keep things copacetic--she's gonna come out way ahead. If you go nuts and start getting evil on us, or Bob does, well, she's rolled snake eyes. But even Mai follows her instincts sometimes…and even Mai trusts people on very rare occasion. She trusts us. She's known me from a child, and Bob for hundreds of years. She knows who you are, and she's seen you in action. I don't think, if I were her, that I would believe I'd have much to worry about."

"That doesn't really sound like her, all the same…"

"Yeah, like I said, it's a gamble, which is why she and Morgan are probably sleeping on opposite sides of Chicago right now. I think what we have to do is show her that while we aren't a threat, we aren't her lapdogs either. She'll try to push the favors she's done us for favors from us, and we'll do some of them. I think we'd better let Bob be in charge of that. I'm too…well, stupid, and you're too young and too trusting, which is what Bob says about me. So we let him deal with Mai when it comes to any favors exchanged, any bargaining done. Bob knows what we'd want. I think we can let him speak for us with some confidence, here."

"He did promise you." Eryl smiled.

Harry smiled too, but looked embarrassed, and back out the window. "Yeah. He did, and he doesn't go back once he promises. You hungry? Cru left stuff in the fridge. He's checking all the maintenance and things Megare's not up for right now. I wonder why she showed him all of it, and not one of us. You'd think…well, I'm sure she had her reasons."

Eryl blinked at him. "Why, for Cruachan. To help him learn about our magical methods, and our more mundane methods of construction." Eryl grinned. "He fixed up one of the bathrooms at St. Agatha's. It's true, one of you--I'm afraid I'm going to be a bit useless in the magic department for a little while, until I learn the differences between practicing magic as a human and as a Drake in human form--had probably better ask him if there's anything you should do. I'm sure he'll know what a wizard should handle, and what only Megare can. And yes, I'm very hungry."

"Well, c'mon. We'll raid the kitchen. Doesn't Megare have the greatest kitchen…?"

* * *

Eryl finished patting his mouth with his napkin and neatly folded the fabric to set on his plate. The plate vanished as Cru whisked by; Eryl smiled fondly, then looked back up at Harry and said "I…suppose I'm comfortable this way. I was born in your body. To me, this body--this appearance--is the way I look."

"It wouldn't have to be a massive change. It's just gonna be impossible to explain us lookin' this much alike. Bob says we might be taken for brothers, but the whole world knows I ain't got a brother. He sees it different, but I think we look too much alike to fake cousins, either, any differences in our posture and movement and voices notwithstanding. You'd only have to change it a little. For one thing, Eryl, memories or no memories, you're a baby. You shouldn't look like a guy thirty-seven who's losing his hair."

"I think you look lovely. Not much like me, though."

"Most people don't recognize themselves right away--you don't look like me to me, either--but believe me, other people will notice us. How about this; start with a template of the way I looked at…twenty-one. That's as young as you can go and still be legal for everything, though still too old to explain a lot of the stuff you're going to trip over."

Eryl pondered. "All right. Will you help me effect the changes? The twenty-one-year-old you is still in there; put on his illusion for a moment."

"Okay." Harry got up and thought back, taking himself back to when he was twenty-one. If he'd tried to think of what he looked like at twenty-one, he'd have gotten it wildly wrong, of course; everyone's self-perceptions are off by too much idealizing one way and too much undeserved disgust the other way.

Eventually he opened his eyes, blinking. He looked at himself in a reflective metal cabinet door and blinked. "Yeah, I did actually have hair at one time, I guess," he chuckled. "Though I also always had this high forehead."

"It's a lovely forehead," Eryl said idly, as though batting away a self-deprecation made by a child, as he came and lay a hand on Harry's shoulder. He looked Harry up and down, and seethed just a tiny bit, and there he was, looking like Harry at twenty-one.

"It's that easy?"

"It's that easy. It's not hard to remember the…the markers, the particular--oh, I don't know what to call it. It's natural as breathing, as Bob--"

"--like Bob said," Harry grinned. "I think Bob's got another worshipper."

"Besides you?" Eryl smiled.

"And Megare. Cruachan thinks he's the shit, too. He deserves some group love anyway, after what he's been through. Okay, so I can drop this? I feel pretty stupid."

Eryl chuckled. "Yes, go ahead, I've got the…the template."

Harry shook his head like a dog shaking off water, and when he stopped, he looked himself again, only with his hair even more askew.

Eryl laughed and moved over to start reordering it for him with dexterous fingers.

"You move really easy, too."

Eryl shrugged. "All part of it, I would imagine. I move like I expect to."

"You move like Bob."

"If he were your size and shape. Your center of gravity's higher."

"You think we can change that hair color a little? Just looking like me as a kid isn't really enough; you still look too much like me."

"How should I change it?"

"Well…if you had parents, Bob would be your other one. You could try blond."

"Blond! With this skin tone? I should stand out like a piebald pony in a herd of Shetlands."

"You can change the skin tone too, can't you?"

Eryl blinked and stopped rearranging Harry's hair. "I still want to look like something I feel is myself, when I finish these changes you believe I need to make."

"Trust me, you do need to. There'll be no explaining us if we look too much alike. I have a cop friend who hangs on like a terrier, and I'm under unofficial suspicion for murder--you know that--from a lot of quarters. In short, a lot of people to whom we can't afford to explain the truth about your origins are gonna be very curious about you, and if you look that much like me, we won't get away with it. You could be a relative of mine, that's the cover we'll likely use, but--"

"I understand." Eryl sighed. "Well. In honor of Bob, then, paler skin." He closed his eyes and thought, and it looked for a moment like all the blood was running out of him in some unseen location; Harry had seen a lot stranger than that, though, and held his peace. When Eryl's eyes opened, his complexion could only be described as strawberries-and-cream, Harry's olive/sallow undertones replaced with cream-white and undertones of pink. His lips were a smooth, flushy red.

"Damn. I wish I'd looked like that at twenty-one."

Eryl looked in the reflective cabinet door briefly; Harry would have been too curious to let it go with such a distorted image, but Eryl didn't seem worried enough about it to seek out a proper mirror. "You like it, then?"

"Yeah, I do, and I'm not just saying that 'cause it doesn't look…like me. You gonna do the blond hair with it?"

"No; that would make me stand out too much, I think. But I can lighten it a bit. How's this?" He looked into the cabinet's reflection, and his hair lightened by a few shades--a paler brown with coppery tones that looked like it might highlight blonde in the sun.

"Is that all over you?"

Eryl rolled his eyes, folded his arms, then looked back up at Harry. "It is now. Would you like to check?"

"Maybe later. How about the eyes?"

"What the devil is wrong with my eyes, for pity's sake?"

"Nothing, they're just the same shade of brown as mine. If we're not going to change any of your bones, your height, that sort of features--we'd better be pretty thorough with the pigmentation. Or would you rather have a body that looked even less like what you think of as yours, because you're shorter or taller or have somebody else's cheekbones and nose?"

Eryl sighed. "Excellent point."

"Make 'em like Bob's?"

"Bob's eyes change color a great deal, which is common for light colored eyes…but I can make brown eyes that change to green."

"Huh…yeah, that really pale brown, almost gold? That looks green sometimes. That'd look great on you, especially with that color hair. Go for that."

Eryl closed his eyes a for a few seconds, then opened them. "How is it?"

"They look the gold color now. I guess they'll turn color when the light through them changes."

"Yes." Eryl grinned and his eyes glowed Drakefire-green for a moment.

"Augh, don't do that," Harry said, turning away.

Eryl giggled at him. "And why can't I mess with you a bit? I'm a bloody fucking Drake, here. I could have kept your body and been done with it. I risked my life to save yours and return your body, and I wind up a--"

"Okay, okay, you have the right to mess with me. You deserve it, I guess." Harry smiled lopsidedly at him. Eryl's full red mouth smiled back, and he pulled Harry to him for a hug.

"You know you're really fucking gorgeous like that."

"You're flattering me so I won't change it back," Eryl told him, smiling. He backed up a little, not letting go of Harry completely, to look at his own reflection in the cabinet, then at Harry. "I still think you're…you're more what I like."

"Well, you're more what everybody and their dog is gonna like, especially with the way you move, courtesy of Bob, and that pretty accent--which has gotta also be courtesy of Bob, though it doesn't sound quite like his."

"It could easily be another accent he's familiar with--that of someone close to him, or the accent of a slightly distant portion of his family. Megare said I sounded cosmopolitan, but the English aspect seems to keep getting stronger. I hope I'm not eventually so close to Bob's own original speech that I can't be understood. Old English or even Middle English would be a real problem. I'll see if I can find the right memories, but they'll be very old, from when he was alive. It might take a bit."

"Anyway, we could get you a translating device, or even cast something permanent onto you."

"You could on a human."

A Drake brain might resist that kinda tampering, even well-intentioned, but it could be done with cooperation. I'm still sort of stunned we got you in there, but Bob said we could do it, and he was right."

"He usually is," Eryl said softly.

"Yeah. He always is, almost. Don't tell him I said that. He's insufferable enough about it."

Eryl just smiled a bit shyly. Harry shook his head. "Kid, you are gonna break serious hearts."

Eryl laughed. "Oh, I doubt that very strongly."

"That's my insecurity talking, my friend. You'll get over that when you see what happens when we get back home."

Eryl shrugged, as though the matter were of little importance to him. "I suppose Cruachan is still making his rounds…"

"Yeah, most likely." Harry put his hands on Eryl's shoulders, rubbing them gently. He had nice delts. Must be the sword work. "But you're worried more about Megare, aren't you?"

"I just can't believe…she's so energetic, firey, full of--of knowledge and power and everything. And now she's like a ghost."

"She just needs to remember how to be herself as a human, that's all. She'd been human for a lot of centuries before this. If she'd been a Dragon any longer, it might have taken her a couple of years…and she wouldn't have been quite the human wizard Megare that we knew. But this time, she'll be back. She just needs time. Bob knows what he's doing."

"Yes. We've established that he generally does, haven't we?" Eryl smiled, but it faded quickly.

"Look," Harry said, pulling Eryl a little closer. "It's not like with you. Megare is a true Draconian. It's her natural form; her human form is supposed to be an auxiliary, a secondary form. It took her centuries to become Megare."

"Then why is she human? Why is she a wizard?"

"She has the gift, as a human, is why she's a wizard. Draconians do, in their human form. Drakes do, too. That's why some of them prefer their human forms. Megare prefers hers because she can do more good in the world this way, and because it is possible to get used to your human form, even when you're a true Draconian. She likes being human, but there are some things, like language, that she'll never be good at. Her brain just isn't set up for it. She has no language capability of her own; she doesn't need it to understand, but she needs it to be understood. By humans, at least. So she has to use the capability of the people around her, which is why the people she can 'hear' most easily are the easiest for her to talk to. She is an exceptionally powerful wizard as a human, though."

"I'd noticed that, yes." Eryl smirked. "I would seem to be standing here, and all."

"Yeah," Harry sighed, realizing that Eryl might always love Megare in a way that Megare could not reciprocate, being who and what she was. She loved, deeply--it was why she preferred her human form; she could do more good for more living beings as a human. But what Eryl felt was foreign to her nature, and they both knew it.

"Do you think…do you think Mai might be a true Draconian species?" Eryl wondered.

Harry blinked. It hadn't occurred to him, but it would explain some things. "Anything's possible with Mai, I've learned. If she is, she's of a different species than Megare. But she doesn't have to be a true Dragon to be what she is. She's Ancient Mai. There have been human wizards like her before, and there will be again."

"Are we so sure they were human? Megare, after all, prefers her human form, though it is her secondary one, not her most natural one, and there are human qualities and abilities she'll never have in that form."

"You'd be better off talking to Bob about this, Eryl, I only got speculation. I think I came as close as I dared sniffing around whether Mai was a Drake. She'd have blown me through a wall if I'd actually come out and asked, is what she implied."

"She knows Drakes. I wonder why she knows Drakes so well, if she has such great animosity toward them--and I wonder if she has any specific plans for me, or just realizes that a Drake sympathetic to humans, fully trustworthy, would be a very valuable thing to have on her side."

"Could be a little of both. Don't worry; you're not on your own. Bob and I will stay between you and Mai while you have your little conversations, at least figuratively. You do know better than to agree to anything at all she proposes without checking with us, right?"

"That was my current plan."

"Good, because she does know Drakes and you may need her help. I'm sure she'll be only too happy to give you a hand whenever you need one, and do it well and unstintingly, 'cause it'll put you in her debt."

Eryl smirked. "Indeed. I'd thought of that."

"Watch it around Morgan. He sees her point, but he doesn't like this."

"Oh, Morgan, bloody Morgan doesn't like anything. Does anyone know what terrible thing happened to him to make him the way he is? He's not a sociopath. Something must have..."

Harry gazed at him, brows raised. "Uh…I never thought about it. I only knew he pretty much despised me. I guess…no, I don't know. I doubt Bob does. And I don't suggest you ask Morgan."

"Oh, I shan't. But I've considered asking Mai."

"Don't do it soon. We need to see where you stand before you start getting up close and personal with the questions and the interest with those two, okay?"

"Of course, Harry, if you think it's best," Eryl said docilely, then flashed his lashes up at Harry and smiled with the corner of his mouth.

"You little--" adjectives failed Harry and he grabbed Eryl around the waist for the purpose of noogieing him with the other hand, but Eryl easily slid loose, twisted and lifted Harry over one shoulder, carrying him into the main window room and dropping him on a floor cushion, where he bounced, still scrambling to get hold of some part of Eryl and do something unpleasant to it. But Eryl's clothes fit him, which made him hard to grab, and he was deft, which made him impossible to anticipate.

But he threw himself down on the cushion next to Harry, an arm over his chest. "Want to wrestle?" he purred, and straddled Harry. He was hard as a rock under his button-flies. He ran his hands slowly up under Harry's shirt, sliding his fingers through soft hair.

"Jesus!" Harry levitated without benefit of magic, knocking Eryl over, and ending up on the other side of the room so fast he was pretty sure he'd hopped through one of Megare's depthless portals. "Eryl! You're my baby, kind of!"

"That's not the problem," Eryl said in a quiet, mildly annoyed voice from his position half on and half off a couch, where he'd landed when Harry's escape had flung him willy-nilly. "The problem is that you think of me as being brand-new. There are things that are brand-new to me, Harry. Sex with you isn't one of them. Neither is sex with Bob."

"I know," Harry sighed. "I know you have our memories, and that…especially if…I mean…shit, I don't know, I suppose it might be the first thing that ever got you off, those memories, and it would've seemed…like you were there. Which has gotta be better than a skin rag any day. But…look." Harry sighed again. "I don't want you to be insulted."

"Then you'd better talk very quickly, because feelings of insult are approaching at a very high rate of speed."

"I feel…I feel responsible for you. I'm just not comfortable…not--I mean, with someone I'm taking care of, in a way. No, you're not my child. I know that, that isn't…it's true part of me is part of you, but for God's sake, you're a Drake. You're not physically related to me in any way. Though you did live in my body for a while."

"And a fine body it is. I hope you like the work I put into it."

"I do. I, uh, I plan to try to keep some of it up if you'll help me. Some of it I can't do, but--"

"I'd be glad to. Now, as to why I shouldn't be insulted? Something about your being responsible for me?"

"That's it, pretty much. You…you need me too much. It's like I felt at first about Bob being bound to me and not the skull. I had a problem with that, too, if you'll think about it and pull up the files."

"Yes, I remember." Eryl inhaled hugely and sighed the breath out. "You're saying it's something like that."

"Yes. Something like that."

"I am not as helpless as you seem to think me. I am not helpless at all."

"No, but you're new. There are things you need to learn about yourself, and I need to be a safe place, a helper, while you do that. I'd feel too guilty."

"As though you were taking advantage."

"Yeah. Yes, exactly."

"This couldn't possibly have anything to do with the fact that I look so much like you, could it?"

Harry was silent a moment.

"Remember how well I know you, Harry."

Harry sighed. "Okay, there's that, too."

"I've been through enough in terms of identity; I'm not changing my very face that radically just to make you more comfortable. But…do you want me to shapeshift into something else when we--"

"I think the question is far enough in the future that the subject can be tabled for this particular moment," Bob said, coming in. "Megare is sleeping. Cruachan is with her."

Eryl nodded. Harry sighed and slumped to the floor where he was standing, landing on a smaller cushion.

"I take it you lay one of those fascinating lily-white hands on Harry, Eryl, and he made a bid for the stratosphere?"

"You take it quite correctly." Eryl sighed and hauled himself up onto the couch. "This is the compromise Harry and I came to, between my wanting to look like myself, which doesn't seem like too much to ask--I'm a bloody Drake, God love me--and his thinking I needed to look different from him so theat we wouldn't be so attention-grabbing, which I suppose does make some sense. What do you think?"

"Harry's right, and I think you're beautiful. You look like a child, and of course the pigmentation changes are noticeable--and very attractive--but you still look, to a good degree, 'yourself'."

"I took Harry at twenty-one for my template. It was his suggestion, because I am 'a baby'."

"Harry is a sentimental bag of mush," Bob said, matter-of-fact, but with a fond smile at Harry.

"I know," Eryl smiled too. "I rather enjoy that about him." He cast his eyes toward Harry, then away. "I'd say I loved that about him, but I don't want to make him bolt from the room."

"Eryl, c'mon, gimmie a break here! I'm fine now. Let's just…let's just leave that for a little while, okay? We got an awful lot that needs dealing with right now."

"He's right about that," Bob said, "but Drakes and twenty-one year old humans both have phenomenal sex drives, you know," he reminded Harry. "Don't expect him not to try again."

"With either of you," Eryl said, smirking at Bob.

"Eryl, my dear, dear lad, if you tried it with me, my only objection would be that we should find out what Drakes do, exactly, when they orgasm, to avoid injury or property damage."

"Oh, my. That's true." Eryl frowned. "I'm sorry, I just…feel human. I didn't think."

"Yeah, well, you're a human who's capable of shooting banefire out your mouth without any difficulty," Harry said. "You're not all human inside."

"I'm not?" Eryl looked a bit disturbed and lay a hand on his solar plexus. "That would explain the…the rather buoyant sensation I have, right in here…I feel like I could do leaps farther than I've ever been able to manage in any sort of fencing or saber work."

"You almost certainly could," Bob agreed. "But be careful. Remember what happened when I woke you."

"I could do that accidentally in human form?" Eryl said, looking very alarmed. "Gods and demons. I could have taken Harry's head off. I'm sorry," he said quickly, looking at Harry, who waved it away.

"I didn't think of it either," Harry shrugged.

Bob answered Eryl "That's why we have communication set up with Mai. Whenever we use it, we'll have to bring Megare's home out of the in-between and into real time, but that should be no problem for no more than…oh, a day or so's worth total of shorter conversations, before we are ready to leave. We can't leave until Megare is ready, of course. Her other friends wouldn't understand her…condition of the moment."

"No, we mustn't leave her, of course," Eryl said quickly. "Would you mind…would it be all right if I went to sit with her?"

"She would sense you, dear love," Bob said gently. "The fact that you are a Drake would be the only thing she could discern in her sleep. It could upset her. The presence of a hearth imp, a dead person or a human wizard does not alarm her. You can see her when she wakes up. She stayed with you when you were settling in to your new brain over the course of a normal Drake sleep cycle, though; she will understand when she sees you that you would like to stay with her sometimes, and tell you if it's all right, possibly through me."

"I wish I'd known." Eryl looked down at his hands, folded between his knees where he was leaning his elbows on them, and sighed.

"You can thank her when she wakes," Bob said, sitting next to him and rubbing his back.

"I have a question--" Harry spoke almost trepidatiously, and Eryl smiled at him reassuringly while Bob raised an eyebrow at him.

"If we're in the in-between, or however you put it, why can we see…" he gestured to the windows.

"That's a created projection, I'm sure, for continuity," Bob said offhandedly. "Of course, Megare is very good with doors. Her home may be in the in-between; but she may have avenues leading out into realtime even now."

"Megare is too much, I can't handle it," Harry said, putting a hand over his eyes. "I'll never be able to see things like a true Draconian."

"She's only a very lost human right now, Harry--a brilliant human, with a very precious telempathic gift, and a terrible language dysfunction that she'll need help learning to work around and cope with. Don't forget that when you see her. It would break her heart if you became uncomfortable with her because she has been Y Ddraig Goch."

"Oh, no--no, no, never." Harry got up. "In fact, I was just gonna go see her. I know she's sleeping, I just wanted to…you know. Make sure she's…I dunno, breathing, okay, you know."

"I understand," Bob said. "That will do no harm."

"Yeah, um." He seemed to feel he should say something else, but finally he just turned and left, down the passage that eventually, after some branchings, led to Megare's room.


	23. Chapter 23

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the characters and I don't own this story.

**_LOUD AND CLEAR! I DO NOT, HAVE NOT AND WILL NOT EVER OWN THIS STORY!_**

**This story is the property of Tang Guangzhen who was kind enough to give me permission to post this here. Any flames about that will be used to fry your ass.**

**Thank You**

* * *

"I don't bend this way!" Harry was down on the gym floor, on a mat, of course, doing an iliapsoas stretch--left knee on the ground, holding the back foot up near his ass with that hand, lunging forward on his other bent leg, balancing a bit with his right hand when necessary, against the mat.

"You bent that way for quite some weeks, while I was living in your body, my adored progenitor," said Eryl. "You do more severe stretches in your Hatha Yoga sessions."

"Do you know how many years its been since I was into that regularly?"

"Obviously too many," Bob said; he was on Harry's other side, doing the same stretch, only with his mouth closed, eyes closed in concentration at getting the balance and the pull exactly right--it's very easy to end up trying to stretch unstretchable tissues instead of one's muscles, which does no good at all and can actually damage the tissues with microtears that heal very, very poorly--and smiling. Harry had always managed to maintain his physical condition at a certain minimal level of fitness, despite his lusty hatred for doing so, sheerly out of necessity. He'd never have survived his intensely violent job if he hadn't kept himself up somehow. But he was never going to enjoy it.

"And don't let go of that foot, either of you, just extend the arm back slowly as far as it will go, and now let go, don't let the foot smack the mat, that's right, slowly down…and now, both hands on the right thigh like this…" he laid his right hand on his knee facing left and the left just higher on the thigh, facing right, "…ease back 'til the right calf's ninety degrees from the floor, and push up with your hands on the right leg, and the right leg itself, to stand. Right, just like that, the idea is just not to jerk your left hip at all moving that left leg into a standing position; stand up without it, and then it's likely safe to move normally. In fact, a lumbar stretch, Bob, after you get done with both sides…"

"Just what I was thinking. You and Harry grab your toes quite easily, despite the almost unbelievable length of your legs; it was getting a bit difficult for me the last time I…oh, my." He had sat down, humped his back a little for the first part of leaning into the stretch, and found himself with his fingers extended far out past his pointed toes. "I suppose that must be because Harry can do it. I've doubtless got something of a combination of my own person when last it was alive, and the person of the person generating my person--Harry." He grinned to himself before lowering his forehead to his knees.

Harry stared. "I cannot do that."

"I think you must be able to do that," Eryl said. "Harry, sit down with me. Lumbar stretch. Just as you saw Bob do it."

"Oh, all right." Despite his bitching, Harry's eyes closed, his face cleared, and he performed the stretch without even a twitch.

Bob said "Eryl remembers many of the exercises and 'stretches' swordsmen performed when I was alive to keep the muscles strong and in balance--or your right and left sides would become desperately uneven in terms of strength, and not in all the same places--and from you, he knows that many of them were actually dangerous and are no longer performed."

"Yes, too many of them endangered nonpliable tissue, and the strength exercises were far too hard on the joints. I'll admit nothing really substitutes for plain old lunges and squat-thrusts with a pushup when it comes to fencing…"

"Those I know," Bob smirked, "though we called them something else. Generally something obscene. I think your excellent grasp of these things comes from a combined knowledge of what needs to be done, from me, and the safest way to do things, from Harry, though much Hatha Yoga is considered unrecommended."

"There's modified Hatha," Harry reminded him, "which is mostly what I do. Though I do know the original asanas."

"Eryl can also translate what is being worked for the sake of stamina and stability in muscles large and small in swordplay into methods that are more modern and less dangerous, via his knowledge from both of us--and all this gives me a thought. Eryl my lad, had you thought of what you'd like to do for a living, at least for a while, when we return to Chicago? You'll stay with us at first, of course--or for as long as you like."

"I was going to go live in the St. Agatha's belfry and catch bugs with the bats, but I found out the city has a statute about that." He grinned. "So I believe I'll copy Harry's example and start my own business. Since I want to be certain that I have this Drake magic completely under control, I won't be giving him competition just yet--I thought I'd open a fencing studio and offer other sorts of bladework classes. I'm sure Mai will be good for the starting capital."

Bob nodded, pleased. "You do anticipate me, my dear, which pleases me no end--as it always did with Harry," he added, casting an affectionate glance at his former student.

The former student was dropjawed. "Open a studio? He's a Drake!"

Eryl sort of looked at himself, and looked around behind himself, and up over his head and around, then looked at Bob and shrugged, an expression of puzzlement gracing his features.

"Yes, he is," Bob said encouragingly to Harry. "And…?"

"And he's a Drake! What if he gets hurt? What if they call a doctor? What if he burps up a sandwich bite and banefires somebody's head clean off?"

Eryl smacked a hand to his lower face and stifled a snort, lowering his head, and wrapping his other arm around his waist as he contained himself.

Bob, with more practice, managed just to smile a little and say "As for the first part of those questions, the same could be said of me. I don't intend to hide in your shop all day, Harry, simply because I am physiologically abnormal. I am also a wizard, and the other wizards of Chicago have a vested interest in keeping me out of the clutches of modern medicine; if any of us end up in a hospital, the Council never has much trouble getting the unfortunate individual back out. If Eryl gets hurt, he will bleed Drake blood, which, to the uninitiated, looks just like human blood, and he'll be covered with protective gear in any case, as will his students. They'll also be using practice weapons. But if he pops a ligament, he'll simply reform it. If he breaks a leg he can do the same. You are far more physically vulnerable than either Eryl or myself, Harry. And we will be sure he is in no danger of belly-laughing at a good joke and accidentally bringing firey death to the poor bastard who told it to him."

Eryl snorted again, evidently thinking this kind of idea extremely funny, probably because he liked the absurdity. "I've heard of dragon breath…" he muttered, and began to giggle softly.

Harry glared at him.

"Eryl, my love, you're irritating Harry. He's only worried about you, and he has good reasons. He simply needs a little reassurance that those reasons will be addressed before we let you out to maraud and plunder the streets of Chicago under no guidance but your own. And the guidance of Harry's and my memories of having lived there for however many years, exactly."

Now Harry glared at Bob. "You could back me up a little, here."

"If you'll think on what I've said, my darling, you'll realize that's exactly what I've been doing. But I wish you would remember that Eryl, while a new-made being, without much experience of his own as opposed to memories of ours, is not the teenager he currently appears barely older than. Please remember that he will have thought of the problems and difficulties he might encounter in such an enterprise as, for example, opening a fencing studio. He's our responsibility for the moment, but not our child--and if he is, he is our full-grown child. We don't need to remind him to exercise his common sense, or do it for him."

"I wouldn't go that far," Eryl said, looking a little wistful. "I may still need the occasional reminder."

"We all do," Bob said gently. "Even adults. Most people don't know this--"

"Oh God, Bob knows something most people don't. I'm gonna crap my tights," Harry muttered.

"Ew," muttered Eryl back, giving Harry a look. Harry stuck his tongue out at Eryl. Eryl grinned.

Bob was going on, ignoring the byplay, "--teenagers' brains aren't fully formed. Don't laugh; but it's true that it's not all hormones that makes many of them seem so insane. There is an aspect of the cortex that deals with judgment and long-view planning, and teenagers simply don't have all of it yet. That's why they're so shortsighted--it's not all that they have I'll-live-forever syndrome, nor, as I said, hormones. Some of it is that their brains honestly aren't finished, and not their fault at all. The combination of that with testosterone is what makes for the driving habits of teenage boys, by the way."

"Ah," Eryl said, nodding.

"And this has to do with what? Nobody here is a teenager; yes, I know he isn't," Harry said, tossing his head in Eryl's direction on the last part of the statement.

"I'm just trying to explain to you why you feel like you have to do his extended thinking for him, point out logical steps b and c and d for him. With most teenagers, most people that young, you do have to do that at least sometimes. But Eryl's brain is all finished, and a very fine and well-protected and

-functioning brain it is. You'll notice that only the medulla was actually damaged, according to Mai; the rest had been synaptically randomized by the charge Cruachan used, but there was no burning, no damage that could not be healed by a wizard. A human brain could not have been salvaged short of the Black."

"Are we done lecturing me?" Harry sighed.

"Harry," Bob sighed, and came to take Harry's now-scruffy face in his hands and kiss him lightly. "I wasn't lecturing. I was just trying to help you understand why you feel so nervous about Eryl, and that you honestly don't need to, at least not for the reasons you think you do. What he needs help with can be handled before we return to Chicago. You needn't fear for him so."

"It's true, Harry," Eryl said softly, though he didn't approach them. He hadn't tried to touch Harry since Harry bolted, blood pressure arcing, away from him in the main window room. Partly, he knew, he didn't want to make Harry wonder, make him nervous. Partly, Eryl was hurt, and if any touching was going to be done, Harry was going to instigate it. Eryl knew it was a bit childish of him, but he just no longer felt like being very big about these things in the midst of his "not even really a loss because he knew it could never happen anyway" with Megare. Harry running from him, a man whose every memory he could live as his own if he wanted to, and whom he still loved unreservedly, knowing him that well…Eryl felt he had a right to be upset.

And he had been terribly horny. Fortunately, it was looking like Bob would be willing, at a more convenient time, to help him with that.

"I hear you," Harry sighed. "Try to put up with me, okay? I got a parenting streak a mile wide."

"I know, and I've no idea where you could have got such a thing, but it's terribly sweet," Bob said, kissing him again.

"Well, he got it from his father and from you, Bob," Eryl said, surprised. "You knew that, didn't you?"

"Me?" Bob blinked.

Harry said "Bob. You came right into my mind while I was asleep, and my defenses didn't even peep, let alone throw you out. I had to start trusting you pretty much completely, a real long time ago, for that to happen, wouldn't you say?" Harry smiled, laying his fingers on Bob's cheek.

"I suppose," Bob said, giving Harry a warm smile back.

"You two are going to set off my banefire gas," Eryl said, smirking broadly. "Are we going to practice? Because I'm just as interested in the idea of a nice affectionate orgy."

"We're going to practice," Harry said, clamping the hand on Bob's cheek over his mouth instead. "Aren't we, Bob? I don't wanna lose any more than I have to of what Eryl worked so hard for, especially the stamina. Gods know I can use that, as much running the fuck away as I do."

"Good," Eryl said, as Bob rolled his eyes at having been silenced. "We'll start with basic forms. I know Bob already knows those, but Harry hasn't had much time with them without me inside him. We'll proceed at his pace; if we feel the need, we can continue at more advanced levels after that, Bob. Sound all right?"

"Oh, yes," Bob agreed, once again moving to take his place on Harry's other side, on the mats in front of the mirrors.

Eryl said "Harry, I know you feel stupid watching yourself in the mirrors, but you know it really is necessary. All sorts of martial arts students, dancers, singers, public speakers even, use them. It keeps you from practicing inaccuracies over and over."

"I got it, Eryl."

"And if I catch you staring at Bob instead I'll whack your bum with the flat," he threatened, waving his wooden practice blade threateningly. "Come to think of it, let's rotate. Move up, Harry--Bob, get behind me instead of in front of Harry."

Valiantly controlling the huge grin that was threatening to break out on his face, Bob went around them both to take up a position on Eryl's other side.

Harry was obviously controlling the same sort of sex joke Bob was telling himself, untruthfully, he was too big to make. Harry had a rather confused, bug-eyed look on his face--hell yeah he was that juvenile, but he was also trying not to connect sex with Eryl--which nearly sent Eryl into spasms of laughter, but Eryl was too big for that kind of thing, too, he decided.

* * *

Bob was sitting by Megare's bed at her writing desk, humming to himself and flipping to another page in the sheaf of notes he'd made of the crystal solid Mai had given him. In one hand, he held a flattened triangle of bone, turning it over and over in his fingers. It was real bone. It had been in stasis ever since the spell was instigated. Mai had broken it at considerable risk to herself, and without consulting the rest of the Chicago area Council, who were now considered "the skull"'s caretakers. He imagined that, in realtime, she would be doing quite a bit of facing down member after member, alone and in groups. But she'd certainly done that before. Her decisions were not always popular, but unless she herself changed her mind, they were always obeyed. They might call her head of the Council, and Coordinator of the World Council, but what she was--she was a bloody queen. She was the monarch component of "constitutional monarchy" with a peerage of nobles, religious figures, artisans, merchants, servants, soldiers, peasants, and slaveys.

Bob had been several of those, at different times. At the moment, he was technically a slavey, but he knew that technically didn't amount to anything anymore in this case. Not even Mai was pretending.

"Karitas habundat," Bob sang softly, "in omnia…de imis…"

The notes echoed softly from the bed.

Bob sat up straight, turning, at once. Megare was lying on her front with her face resting on her palm, head turned to the side, watching him. He realized he'd been singing the same songs for hours. It was music by Hildegaard von Bingen, hundreds of years old, with soaring and distinctive melodies. He listened now as Megare's voice, something like a cross between a cello and a French horn, begin to sing the opening notes of the introit to the "Virga", wordlessly, but changing the vowel sounds to match the ones in the words at each note.

She had heard the song perhaps half a dozen times, and could remember the long, incredibly complex melody and the vowel sounds, and reproduce them with her voice--which she had no use for in her natural form, as she could project concepts and feelings as a Draconian, but only receive as a human.

He had never heard her sing like this before. Her voice soared and swooped, and as she felt his enjoyment, she pushed herself up to a sitting position clinging to the mounds of pillows, continuing to sing, wordlessly.

When she reached a point about three quarters through, she stopped and looked puzzled, and he hastily got up, setting the bone fragment on the table, and sat on the bed with her; he took her hands and held them. "Listen to me," he said. "It's in here. I'm singing it in here. Listen." He placed her hands against his temples.

She studied him seriously, then opened her mouth, and sang a few tentative notes--the correct ones.

He almost bounced on the mattress with excitement. "Yes! Yes, that's it." He sang the next line out loud, and she sang it right with him, but without words; he concentrated on the melody, stilling his own voice, and she finished the song, holding the last note out.

"That was beautiful! Beautiful, Megare," he cried, throwing his arms around her. She might or might not have understood his words, but his intent, as always, was clear to her, and she grinned as hugely as he did, happy she had made him happy.

It wasn't words yet, but it was sound--it was communication with her voice. She'd heard what he'd sung with, apparently, both her ears and her mind, because she'd repeated it in a way his ears could hear it, knowing his mind couldn't hear her.

He knew she needed to work at picking out words she needed from the minds of those she spoke to, but listening to sound as much as to mind, to understand the significance of a sentiently-created, artificial sound, like a melody, was an important step--knowing that the point was to make such sounds, and learning how to do it by listening first and repeating back, was even more important.

So they sang; he sang things aloud and concentrated at the same time on the melodies instead of letting his thoughts wander, and she listened closely, mind and ears, her dark eyes huge in her small face, gazing into his, until she could sing them with him, and then sing them back.

* * *

"Harry! Eryl! Listen to this--" Bob came into the guest room he and Harry were used to thinking of as theirs--Eryl was used to thinking of it as his, too, but he had relocated across the hall when Harry walked in and blanched at seeing him just stepping into his shorts after a shower. Harry had said "Sorry," and retreated, but when he came back in only a few minutes, Eryl and his few things were gone, and the door across the way was ajar, with light and soft sounds of moving about. Harry'd stood there, thinking of what he might say, and then sighed and went on in to his and Bob's room.

"Eryl?" Bob repeated, looking around.

"Yes?" Eryl said, coming in. "I'm across the hall now, by the--oh God, is she all right?" Bob was holding Megare, who was wearing a red, tentlike cotton nightgown, probably applied to her person by Bob.

"Yes, she's wonderful--listen."

He gazed steadily into her eyes, and she looked back, and smiled a little, and began to rock back and forth just a tiny bit. In a big, bluesy voice, she wailed out "Conjunction junction, what's your function, got three favorite cars that get most of my job done…"

"Oh God!" Harry yelled, but Bob and Eryl, who had tears flowing down his face and was ignoring them, was singing "…and, but and or, they'll get you pretty far…"

"Out of the frying pan AND into the fire--they cut loose the sandbags BUT the balloon wouldn't go any higher--"

Harry joined in, too, trying not to cry quite as freely as Eryl.

"Let's go up to the mountains, OR down to the sea, you should always say thank you OR at least say please…"

They fell upon her at that point, and by this time she knew why she was making them so happy, so she grabbed each of them by the head, looking into their eyes and concentrating. "Eryl," she said. "Hello, Eryl. Bonjour. Dia duit, Eryl."

"I wish you and Bob didn't know so many languages," Harry muttered. "That'll make things harder for her to sort out."

"Yes, that's right, hello to you too," Eryl said, and kissed her warmly. "Here. I want to hold her. Can she stand yet?"

"She's not trying at all," Bob said, "and if I know Megare, she'd try if she could. I have to hold her up if she sits anywhere she can't lean."

"I'll be careful," Eryl promised, and she cooperatively wrapped her arms around Eryl's neck as the transfer was made. It looked odd to Harry that nobody had asked her, and then realized that she would have known Eryl's intention probably before he said anything, and Bob's too, and if she'd had a problem, she'd have done something to indicate she preferred the seat she had.

She examined Eryl closely, and pointed directly in his face. "Drake," she pronounced. Then she tapped the side of her own head and nodded again--strangely, that simple gesture was extremely easy to read. She was saying she knew that he was a Drake because she could detect the difference when she "listened" to him mentally.

Everybody stood there blinking, and finally Eryl smiled and nodded. "That's right. I'm a Drake, in human form. I have more than one form, too, like you."

"Yes," she agreed, nodding vigorously. Then she turned her head and gazed at Harry, and reached for him; he came close, and she rested her hand on his shoulder. "'Stars shining bright above you'," she crooned softly in a deep key that made her voice throb richly with an easy vibrato, "night breezes seem to whisper 'I love you'…birds singing in the sycamore tree--dream a little dream of me…"

All three of them teared up. They couldn't help it. You didn't really notice it with Eryl, though, who was already a mess and couldn't wipe his face for holding Megare. "She even got the blued notes on 'sycamore' right," Bob whispered, making it sound like a miracle had occurred before his very eyes.

"Sing with," she demanded, and let go of Harry to tug on Bob. "Sing! 'Say nighty-night and kiss me…just hold me tight and tell me you'll miss me…" Bob sang with her, and together they hit the staggered rhythm perfectly, as she gazed at Bob, getting the song from his mind and making it come out her mouth. They still didn't know if she understood even half--more likely less--of the words she was saying, but that could come in a little more time. Her mouth was remembering how to say words at all, and that was closer than she had been less than an hour ago.

As they stood in their tangle--with Megare in Eryl's arms, holding on to Bob--Harry reached over Megare to begin wiping Eryl's eyes and cheeks. "It's a pain they do that, isn't it," he said, sounding embarrassed.

Even though it made him sad that the gesture he was offering made Harry feel so awkward, Eryl managed to smile at him.

* * *

Harry was just retrieving a coffee from the replicator--he called it that both because of Megare's joke, and because one of the drink dispensers actually looked like an "Enterprise"-series Star Trek drink replicator--when Bob came up behind him, sliding his hands lightly onto Harry's waist and kissing the back of his neck.

"Hiya," Harry said, smiling. Off in the distance, probably the big window room, he could hear Eryl singing--much better than Harry could have, he admitted--with Megare, singing an octave down from her as they went through "The Ants Go Marching". He knew she would get the "THE END" part and not slip up, because Eryl would be thinking about it pretty hard as they got near the end of the song.

Bob slid his arms around Harry's waist and stood there squeezing him gently as Harry had a sip of his coffee. When the mug was down again, Bob said "I'll be sleeping with Megare tonight again."

"Yeah," Harry said, entraining Bob by putting one hand over Bob's arms where they crossed his midsection in front and heading for the table to sit down. Bob took the chair next to him. "Something you need me for?"

"Yes, though not relating directly to Megare. I wondered if you'd consider sleeping with Eryl."

Harry, who had been about to take a sip from the mug, halted as if hit with some kind of alien stasis beam. Slowly, closing his eyes, he set the mug down on the table, not moving otherwise. "May I ask why?" he wondered with a mild note of sarcasm, eyes still closed, still unmoving.

"Because this state of affairs between you could easily have an impact on Megare's recovery. She is a telempath. She knows your feelings, and sometimes she can't help knowing them. She's very fragile at the moment, though getting stronger quickly. I don't want anything getting in the way of that."

Harry inhaled and exhaled once. "Okay. I can be a grownup for Megare's sake, I suppose. But is it really necessary I sleep with him? Couldn't we make nice some other way?"

"Actually, I thought of that because it seemed to be something that would make you less uncomfortable. It doesn't even necessarily involve conversation. All you have to do is share a bed to sleep in. I believe it will help, Harry. But I need you to promise me you'll try--you've been absolutely terrible in hiding your discomfort with Eryl; it was evident to those who know you, including him, even before he asked if you'd like to make love. Since then, it's been preposterous."

"I know," Harry said, very quietly, head bent over the coffee cup. He opened his eyes, but closed them again as steam wafted up into them. "I'm sorry."

"I don't need an apology."

"I know, I know."

"And Eryl doesn't want one until and unless you can give him a sincere one."

"I know. It's just that--"

"No." Bob rose from the table, kissing Harry's temple on the way past. "If you feel you can talk about it, you should talk about it with Eryl first; I'll be happy to listen later. By the way, I have found that the relaxing of the usual daily boundaries that occurs when lying down and preparing to sleep can make it easier to discuss things that are…delicate, or difficult."

Harry gave him a stink eye. "You said I didn't have to."

"You don't, not if you don't want to. It was…an observation." Bob smiled, a little sadly, and turned to go back to Megare and Eryl.

Harry drank his coffee and pondered.

"Greetings," boomed the oven, and something shapeless and enthusiastic bounced out, making the door bang open and shut. The shapelessness rolled a few times before bounding to a spot on a broad metal counter. "Forgive my absences of late. I have been quite busy, with the Wizard Megare feeling so under the weather."

"Yeah, I bet you've had your hands full. This place probably takes some real looking after."

"Quite enjoyable, after so long with nothing to look after at all. It is not beyond my capabilities. How does the Wizard?"

"She's doing great. She's improving all the time. She's learning how to use her voice, and pick words out of people's heads--match words to concepts--faster than she's learning to move, though. She's still so uncoordinated she can't sit up on her own."

"I regret to hear that last, but rejoice to know she will soon be able to communicate normally again."

"If it weren't for Bob being dead and easy for her to hear, whatever the hell that means exactly, I doubt she'd have made it this far already. I feel sorry for Eryl. His heart about breaks every time he sees her."

"Yes, his feelings of responsibility are out of proportion. I had hoped one of you could speak with him about it. I would be willing, but he does not have all my memories up to the point of the Angel Tameriel's returning of the curse to you and the Wizard of Bainbridge. I thought you would be more logical choices."

"I don't know about that, Cru. He may like talking to you better than to me, at least." Harry sighed. "But I'm gonna give it a try. I…need to work on some things with him. I don't want our…okay, my problems with him upsetting Megare."

"I understand. You will inform me if you require my services in any way, of course."

Harry grinned at him. "Of course, Cru. You're like the constant everything else in this insane little universe is measured against."

"I am pleased to be of service. I shall visit Wizard Megare, if you believe that to be advisable."

"Oh, sure. I bet she'd love to see you. Go on ahead."

Cruachan bounded away, the unsettling mirage lines shooting across the kitchen indicating his path.

Harry sighed into his coffee. "Why does being the least weird always make me the odd guy out?"

* * *

Harry knocked. He felt odd about it, for some reason, but he couldn't just barge in. "Eryl?"

"Yes? Come in."

Harry opened the door; Eryl was lying in the bed--his had a canopy, the whole thing done in dark green velvet--with a book open next to him. It was a big sucker, so he had it lying flat, and was propping himself on one elbow to read it. He was--at the least--shirtless, and blinked sleepily. He'd probably been about to turn out the light. Harry had taken too goddamn long to nerve himself up for something so simple.

"I was just thinking…we don't really need to take up two bedrooms as long as Bob is sleeping with Megare. You could come on back in with me. It's not like there isn't enough space in these rooms."

Eryl eyed him, and one corner of his full red mouth curled up. "Don't worry, Harry. I won't allow our little problem to upset Megare. We'll see her separately as much as possible, and when it isn't possible, well…I can behave myself." The unspoken question wasn't present in his tone, but it was there all the same.

Harry sighed and answered it. "I want to try, too, Eryl. Look--"

"If it's easier, don't look at me. Look at the floor, the walls, anything, like you usually do."

"Do you really have to rub in how well you know me quite so hard?"

"If I know you that well, has it ever considered that you must know me, if not equally well, then at least damned close to as well? Your mind makes up part of mine. It isn't direct, but it's definitely palpable, discernible. Come here, Harry. I think I should tell you something that might make you feel better, and that Bob will probably never tell you. He thinks I haven't thought of it, either."

Harry came to the bed and sat down, as Eryl indicated, but Eryl's tone had been not welcoming so much as coaxing, a welcome-to-my-parlor voice. "If Bob wouldn't tell me, then I probably don't want to know. He'd tell me anything that was relevant to me, I know that. But--"

"Listen, Harry. I may be Eryl's synaptic pattern, his deeper brain patterns, his very self--installed into a Drake brain and therefore changed to a degree…it was not the original Eryl that was so installed."

Harry shook his head. "Is this just terminology? Because I don't need to be--"

"It's not just terminology. The Eryl who lived in your body, lived here with Megare while he got his feet under him, went to Chicago with Cru, sought out Mai…that Eryl was you and Bob. Not echoes, not memories. While Eryl was awake, he was made of the combined synaptic patterns of you and Bob, connected at an incredibly elementary level of fragmentation into one, but kept separable by the spell technology of an old culture, an old technology that exists only in fragments, like Cruachan and Megare and a few inscriptions and transcripts. If you, Harry, are standing there, real and complete in yourself, Eryl--that Eryl--cannot exist."

Harry swallowed. He had had thoughts of this nature; he had ducked away from them. He'd blindly followed Bob, and he knew he was doing it, and he would still do it--except Eryl wasn't letting him.

Eryl went on "What Bob saved was a copy. He calls what he read--rather, sensed--to make the copy a 'myelin ghost'--changes in the molecular structure of the channels, tracks made by the consistent use of dedicated synapses--which both medical science and most magical science say should not be able to exist. But he found them. He established the pattern, and he reprogrammed the randomized Drake's brain in that pattern. But the Eryl who exchanged letters with you, who vanished into the ether and then was reformed every time you two joined again in that fashion--is gone. I hope," Eryl finished, lying back against a stack of pillows, "that it makes you a little more comfortable, knowing I'm only a copy of the synapse pattern that was taken, even in a particulate fashion, from you."  
"Listen," Harry said, leaning forward on his hands toward Eryl--he was not gonna be intimidated by this kid. "I didn't think about that because I didn't want to. I wanted to believe we could save Eryl's life, because he saved ours, and because for whatever dumbass reason, I loved him. But you're right; Bob and I were Eryl. He could not possibly be saved, if Bob and I were going to live as who we'd been before. I just accepted a miracle. But this doesn't make any difference to you. You have all Eryl's memories, too. Don't you?" his tone was part request for affirmation, part challenge.

"Yes," Eryl said, "up to when Tameriel gave me--you and Bob--the curse back."

"Then to you, it's no different. Listen…Tameriel was there. Tell me she didn't promise to be there while we found out if you were gonna make it or not."

Eryl glanced away, then back. "She did. You must know that."

"Yeah, I do. She's an Angel, Eryl. Angels got all the angles, you know. Maybe the consciousness that was Eryl didn't die. Maybe when Bob did the scan and created the pattern, he just transferred, with a little Angelic help. Angels can make unusual births happen, you know. And nobody is better with knowing a soul, and only psychopomps can conduct them the way Angels can." Harry leaned back. "I grant you, now, he was transferred into a Drake, not a human. Even being transferred into a human body that wasn't his own--namely mine--would have changed him some. Being a Drake…I think you're going to have to be pretty careful, Eryl. You wouldn't want that Drake arrogance, superiority, that willingness to use mere humans however your needs require, to get the better of you."

One interesting thing about Eryl's creamy complexion was you could see when he colored up. He sat up, and held his hand out to Harry. His expression was steady, though his cheeks flamed.

Harry moved forward on the bed and took his hand, was pulled suddenly forward, which he'd half been expecting but hadn't had time to brace against. As Eryl turned him and planted him against the pillows, using his weight and the covers to tangle Harry up, he said, his voice shaking, "Don't let it happen to me. Don't let me lose who I was. I want to believe I am human. In your body, I was a good man, someone who could be--someone I'm proud to have been, though I couldn't see it then, I can now. But that was you. Bob said that I had your heart--as he might say it of a child, who had something from a parent. If you think I still have it, even as a Drake--help me keep it. I want to keep your heart, and I'm so--" he choked. "I'm afraid I'll turn into--something inhuman, something uncaring--"

"Ssh," Harry pulled him down, holding him close. Eryl buried his face in Harry's neck, shaking just a little with ragged breathing. Harry should have known. Eryl was stretched to the beams, and Harry would have been too, in the same place. If he didn't just lose it completely. "It's okay. It's okay. We're gonna look after you. We won't let anything happen to you…you're too much us, baby. You've got my whole life in you, my viewpoint, my everything. I ain't Jesus, but I ain't a Drake, either. Bob's in there too, everything he knows--though I know it's gonna take a hell of a long time to dust all that off and look at it. That's too much for a Drake's physiology to totally mess with. But you've gotta accept you'll change some. That's okay, we're gonna stay on top of it. Don't be afraid of it, that's what'll lose you the only control you have. It's change, it's gonna happen, that's a given. Don't be afraid; ride it, like a wave. And we'll be here to catch you if you stumble--the us inside you, and me and Bob outside, too."

Eryl quieted after only a few moments; then he moved a little, just enough to make the conversation involve more eye contact, and less wetness on Harry's shoulder. "You do know the reason you ran from me," he said quietly.

"Yeah. I do."

"Because I know everything about you, and that frightens you," Eryl said calmly.

"Yeah. That's it." Harry sighed. "I know how you feel about me--but there's just something inside that needs to run when it's that exposed."

"You should have just said so, instead of all that silliness you did say. It's a very human thing."

"Bob would say that," Harry smiled a little.

"Bob knows everything about you, too, but he's not quite so close--he didn't live in your body the way I did; he was in there, but it was never really his body. It was mine, though. I was even born in it. The way you look is still how I see myself, despite my current appearance, which I suppose I'll get used to eventually. Though I think I'll darken the hair. Besides, you're used to Bob being very close to you, and you're used to him knowing you, and generally just knowing. You already trusted him completely. I'm an unknown quantity, to you."

Harry looked away and nodded. Then he added "But that hair looks great."

"It's too curly for this color. I'll turn it near-black, but…not quite. Just light enough to have gold highlights, how's that?"

"You'll look Irish."

"Well, I speak Irish."

"Your accent is…"

"Kent, actually. Or perhaps more Sussex. I've been asking him, and I've been remembering. Bob came from there originally when he was alive. The area, I mean. I'm not sure why I would have a modern Sussex accent because of that, but--" he shrugged. "Bob's speech changes with the times, or no one would be able to understand him now. By the way, I rather like that nickname."

"What nickname?"

"What you called me when I…became upset."

"Wh--oh, did I call you baby?"

"Yes. I liked it because of the way you meant it. You weren't thinking of me as a child, it was only…affection."

"I call Bob that sometimes, you know, but don't tell him I told you."

"You call Bob that? Oh God, you do, I remember--when you--"

"--are having sex."

"If you called us both that while we were having sex, you wouldn't have to worry about getting our names wrong."

Harry didn't bolt this time. Eryl had been right about everything, and Harry knew now that Eryl's irritability with him hadn't been pique; he could feel Harry's retreat from him, and his nervousness, and he was very hurt by them. Harry hoped there was still time to make a better impression. "I wouldn't have to worry about it anyway. Even if I got so nuts I could ever mix you up--or was facing the other way and guessed wrong--the only thing that'd happen would be you'd correct me and we'd keep going."

"Actually, that sounds fairly likely. Harry, may I kiss you?"

Harry smiled. "Sure."

Eryl kissed him. It was, Harry had to admit, sweet. He hadn't been able to help loving Eryl, as brave and caring as he'd been, facing reality as he had. And those lips were amazing.

Those lips were his.

The kiss broke, and Eryl looked at him, and Harry held up a hand. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, just an attack of freaking out at the narcissistic aspect of this. 'All that silliness' that I told you wasn't just a heap of guano, you know, it just…wasn't the biggest heap. Or something. I do feel…like, I dunno, stupid--not because of you--" he got a hand over Eryl's opening mouth; Eryl just gazed tolerantly at him over it, and he removed it. "It's stupid, I know that. You don't even look like me, to me. But you look like me to everybody else, and I know that, and I know that when I touch you, I'm feeling what other people must feel when they touch me. And I get a little squirrelly…I feel, I dunno, watched and laughed at or something, which is nothing in the world but paranoid, I know, and I'm not going to cater to it, before you say anything."

"You're also feeling what I'm feeling, as I touch you," Eryl murmured, his accent giving it a sweet, almost coquettish sound Harry would never have been able to manage. But then, Eryl had always been able to do things--without losing a shred of masculinity--that would make Harry feel like a first-class girly-man, whether anybody else thought he came off like one or not. "Did that occur to you?" Eryl wondered, smiling slowly.

"Um…it has now." Harry smiled back, a little.

"Good thought?"

"Interesting thought. Yeah, good thought."

"Kiss me, Harry."

Harry did, and this time no odd feeling--though he had a few--was enough to make him pull away.

* * *

Bob was bathing Megare when he felt a sudden shudder go through him. "Oh, my."

Megare looked up from where she'd been readjusting her grip on the round tub's edge--they were in her bathtub, a very large tiled affair with a bench at the edge, like some sorts of old Etruscan bath. Megare was small, but she couldn't move much on her own--she hadn't since her collapse into Morgan and then Mai's arms, next to Eryl on the power station roof--and it's much easier to get a person floating in a tub to wash them than trying to hold them up sitting in a shower.

He had been singing to her, and she frowned as he stopped; then, gazing, she began to smile. "Bob?"

"No, it isn't me, milady, much as you appeal." Though not in this state, Gods know, he added mentally. "I believe it's OH my. Yes, it's Harry and Eryl. Eryl must know whether it's safe, at least for Harry in particular."

She grinned and applauded.

"Oh, stop it. You're outside the complexities of our troubles with love and sex and friendship and protectiveness and fear. You're just happy when everyone's getting along."

She shrugged, as if to ask what was wrong with that.

"Nothing at all, dear one. Please do speak out loud, though, if you can at all. You need to practice."

She nodded, realized, then said "Yes."

"Oh, sorry, nodding's fine. Everyone does that all the time, you'll do it naturally. I just meant, try to refrain from outright sign language. You're sure all the burns are taken care of? If I hurt you in any way, and you don't tell me, I shall be much worse than cross." The hand sliding over her body was shining slightly golden under the water; his soft baritone promised nothing like crossness.

"No burns," she said softly. "No burning. Is good." She rested her head on his shoulder. "Sing."

"Et dès que je t'aperçois, Alors je sens dans moi mon coeur qui bat…" Bob murmured into her neck, the notes vibrating softly in his chest, as his hands moved gently all over her. She closed her eyes to listen to his voice, and to his mind.


	24. Chapter 24

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the characters and I don't own this story.

**_LOUD AND CLEAR! I DO NOT, HAVE NOT AND WILL NOT EVER OWN THIS STORY!_**

**This story is the property of Tang Guangzhen who was kind enough to give me permission to post this here. Any flames about that will be used to fry your ass.**

**Thank You**

* * *

Mai was still speaking, softly, as he'd requested, since he didn't want her voice to deafen him to anything around and his control over the volume was not as good as when he'd first come up with this little device, nor was anything precisely the same about this has had been when Cruachan used it to speak to Bob and Harry while Eryl, not-in Harry's body, had cooperatively failed to exist for a time.

"That's not surprising. In most of your forms--anything that doesn't require a lot of matter-shifting and the storage of the matter in either a denser form or in n-space that you're not-occupying, and the strength and coordination changes will mostly do themselves. The perceptions, especially of your own body, will take a little longer, but you'll be able to get started feeling which way you should be going with them immediately, and a little practice will take care of it. It's only when you get away from something that could normally be run by a brain and central about the size of human or Drake. If you want to be a brontosaurus, you'd better do some practicing, and you'd better find out how big a source of organic matter you personally are going to need. Because shapechanging--while technically a spell; technically, in fact, several spells--isn't a spell to you; it's a reflex. The ability to perform the spells has been encoded into your genetic makeup, so to you, it will feel no different from…picking something up with your hand--you don't follow the nerve impulses that move the arm or control its movement. All you know is you reach over and pick up the object. As I said; the shapechanging is technically a spell. But it's in the same category as walking to anyone with the encoding in their DNA."

"That means reflexes, and not my reflexes."

"Don't worry. They're your reflexes now. I made sure that you're new-tissue from the spine up to the stem. That means your reflexes will be carried with the Drake's reflexes that are already in place in its peripheral systemas your reflexes--that's why you can already move freely and comfortably as a human. The reflexes in the Drake's brain, of course, were randomized with everything else."

"I understand. But there will be reflexes that…belonged to the Drake, that I may have to guard against?"

"A few, but in human form, you'll probably be all right. Pass 'em off as muscle spasms. Oh, and the banefire breathing I told you not to worry about? You can do it, no problem, but you'll find you have to work yourself up a little first. It can't happen accidentally. I figured somebody would've mentioned it by now; the Drake fanatic leader belted a few blasts at us, so Harry and Bainbridge know that human-form Drakes can do it, some of them at least."

"I think I can feel the gas in my chest. Right below my heart."

"That's about where the chamber is. It's bigger in your first form."

"They say I'm…Harry said I'm not all human inside. I suppose he's right."

"He's right, but it's nothing to worry about. Drakes and humans are very similar to each other in some very bizarre ways that there's no evolutionary reason for, some of them chemical and pretty much impossible, naturally speaking. I, and a lot of other people, speculate that Drakes are a combination of human and Draconian DNA. Dragons are natural creatures, at least as far as anyone can tell. So are humans. Drakes, it is believed by…a large enough portion of those with the specific knowledge and experience to be worth listening to, are a bred species--genetically engineered, but at least partly through breeding, not with Petri dishes, if you follow me."

"Humans and Drakes can breed?

"It would have been humans and true Draconians, turkey-baster-style, somewhere between dragons and Drakes, after the engineering part--but yes, they can. Drakes are hermaphrodites, for one thing. If you took a female form, went to the trouble to make it real down to the immature ova, and conceived a child, you would have a baby half-human and half-drake, in human form, assuming you mated with a human."

"That's a safe assumption."

"Whether the child would be a shapechanger would depend on the individual; that'd be a trait that might or might not pass on. That's the biggest reason it's assumed Drakes are engineered. Shouldn't otherwise be possible."

"God above. That would do it."

"You did notice you were bisexual, didn't you?"

"Yes, but I've always been bisexual."

"Oh, right--Bainbridge. That guy, I swear, anything that moved. Okay, where were we…" she flipped through papers in front of her. "Bainbridge has some of this on the crystal I gave him."

"He's mostly interested in the parts about his curse and the bone bit you gave us. He also doesn't think I should be reading the parts about me--well, Drakes--without him."

"He'll protect you right into a box, and Dresden will nail it shut for him. Don't let them do that to you; you don't have to. There's nothing you have to have them for--"

"I happen to love them? They created me, and saved my life as best they could--Bob risked his magic and his sanity--even when they didn't need me any more. Is that nothing?"

"Then love them until you melt into a little puddle, but do it because you want to, not because you can't make it without them. You can." She settled on a new page. "This stuff's about sensory ability. Was there anything else you wanted to know about reflexes?"

"Yes. How hard should I fight them?"

"Well…think of yourself as the Hulk. Your reflexes and strength are what you'd expect from a human with your strength and speed, when you're fine. If you get really set up, though, OR if you do it deliberately, you're going to find you have about--uh, in your case, it might be more, considering the Drake who used to live in that body--three times your apparent strength and speed. If you get shocked, it'll kick in, so make sure you cultivate a calm, cool demeanor." She smiled, coolly. "Make sure it stays real on the inside as well as the outside."

"Oh, dear. I'm really a very…well…Harrylike fellow, I'm afraid, except I don't usually get so angry. Or I didn't, until…until I was a Drake."

"You'll see what I mean. Do as you think best. And also remember that any time you choose, that strength and speed can be brought to the fore. It's a matter of endocrine secretion and a change in the way you burn fuel--and to some degree, what you burn for fuel. If you did it for a long time, you'd have to start eating like a Drake to maintain it, or lose some serious weight."

"How do Drakes eat?"

"Meat should be eaten raw. Don't worry, you won't be able to see most of it going in or down, and the smell won't get to you in Drake form. Raw red meat and mammalian organ meat has the very most nutrients available to it that Drakes require--and that humans require, for that matter. In any case, you can, even in Drake form, eat anything humans eat, but you'll have to eat one hell of a lot."

"I understand."

"You really should practice some form of meditation, adopt some form of…philosophy, if you're going to live among humans as one. Don't think of yourself as the Hulk; think of yourself as a Vulcan."

He smiled. "You watch a great deal of Science Fiction Channel."

"Yeah, you should see what I do when I'm really bored. Vulcans have to maintain calm, because if they don't, they lose perspective; and when they lose perspective, bad things happen. Mostly they assault each other. If you started that in a rage, you'd kill a few people."

"And the best you can tell me is to do everything I can think of to keep my cool?"

"There's always drugs, spells, other such aids."

"Yes, that actually had occurred to me. At this point, I'm not counting it out. What else?"

"Letting off the steam can't hurt. Tie it all up and put it into one package, though; don't start taking apart an alley and end up working yourself into a frenzy. As you saw on the power plant roof--think you had to haul pretty hard to get your sword out of a Drake it happened to."

"Yes…"

"I think, despite what you said Harry thinks, that opening some sort of dojo--or whatever you call if for swordplay--would be an excellent idea. It'd keep your figurative blood pressure down, allow the release of any loose Drake aggression you might find yourself subject to, under controlled conditions, with ingrained rules, protective gear, that kind of thing. You'll find an account in the name of Eryl Q. Thomas at Harry's bank when you get home. The book and papers will be in his desk. You can open whatever additional accounts you like with the money, of course; there should be enough for several after you choose a suitable spot. You'll have to supply the place, after all, and you…may have other expenses."

"Ahm…thank you."

"No charge. You helped me out; I help you out."

He didn't believe that "no charge" but it sounded nice anyway.

"Don't you want to know any more about sex?"

He could feel himself coloring a little. He might have to rethink this complexion. "Of course."

"In human form, you pretty much--hm. Okay, you've done it already, haven't you?" She eyed him. "That's why you didn't bring up your preoccupation with it yourself. Which of them? Both?" she appeared amused, and was likely only curious. He thought about telling her that was a private matter, but he wanted to trust her, and it seemed harmless enough. It wasn't as though Harry would care about Mai's opinion.

"Harry."

"Huh. There's a surprise; would've thought Bainbridge'd go right down your pants, pinstripes and ascot and that pinky ring, too. Um, there is some very small danger of your strength hurting someone during sex, but it helps a lot to take a mentally passive role. It doesn't have to be passive on the outside, just…psych yourself down a little. I've had to do it since I became this strong."

"I think I understand."

"It might build up a few banefire blasts, but you have to blast on purpose. You may--not necessarily--need to turn your head and cough 'em up to avoid the world's worst case of heartburn, but you can't do it accidentally as a human, so don't worry about that."

"Thank all Gods. I was worried, despite your reassurance."

"Not too worried to keep away from Dresden."

"I…well. First I didn't really think about it--irresponsible of me--and then…I was in a bit of a panic."

"And he calmed you down with sex?"

"Uh, I--in a manner of speaking--requested that he do so."

"Ah. Yeah, I can see that with Dresden. Okay, moving along…"

"Wait."

"Yes?" She raised an eyebrow.

"In my natural form, I'm a hermaphrodite?"

"Yes."

"Then I'll assume I'm like most animal families and…um…everything is...tucked away until I need it?"

"Pretty much, but you may find yourself needing it a lot."

"Um…does it matter that I'm only one gender, or should I get a female form together quickly? Will it do me any harm not to…um…do the various things that women do?"

She smiled, coolly again. "No, it won't do you any harm. But you may find, if you try it, that it's a hell of a lot of fun."

He gulped.

"Certainly up to you, though. In fact, there's no reason you can't be very comfortably hermaphroditic as a human. But if your form is feminine in appearance, don't wear tight pants."

He gulped again. "I, um. I'll keep it in mind."

"You do that. Look, have you got a blank crystal?"

"Something that could be used for data storage?"

"Yes. We could minimize the length of time you have to take Megare's place out of whatever kind of external stasis she's using. Harry and Bob expect to be sitting in on these chats. We don't want them finding out you're seeing me alone."

"It's not that I don't trust them," Eryl said softly. "You know that."

"I know that," she repeated, tonelessly.

"It's that they don't trust me," he muttered, and felt sixteen kinds of stupid after he'd said it. He was acting like a teenage son who wasn't allowed to drive past midnight.

Then again, this was information he needed for his survival, about his very nature. And he wasn't a teenager. If they couldn't be troubled at the moment, there was no reason he shouldn't simply handle the matter himself.

"I can get a crystal. What sort of capacity?"

"It won't need to be too large--a standard size, something Megare has a lot of lying around the lab, should be fine."

"I'll do that for our next chat, then. I should probably let--let the house return to the inbetween now, though."

"Yes, probably, it's been about half an hour, we shouldn't push it much longer than that yet. Do you have any privacy problems at the hour it is for you?"

It was the dead of night by their own time, there under the ground. "Bob is awake sometimes at this hour, but he's usually in the library, if he's not with Megare." Cruachan was also sometimes up, but usually he was in his resting phase, acting only as guardian against intruders.

"I'll be here, then."

"Right. I'll see you again soon."

He felt her presence fading, and opened his eyes.

Megare's lab was at the other end of what he knew of the house; there was more to the place, and he'd considered asking Cruachan to show him around--the imp knew the whole complex and its workings by now--but decided it wouldn't be thought too odd by anyone for him to be in Megare's lab, working with his new body.

He could, essentially, do what he had done before; but the power available to him, instead of being that of two very powerful wizards, was that of one powerful Drake. Sorcery, however, was still sorcery, especially in a human form. If he kept the power levels very low, there was no reason he shouldn't check and see what different sorts of spells felt like, and did precisely, in a new body. He'd done the same thing with Harry's body, really, after he'd been born.

He'd had Megare then, though, standing ready. His thoughts on the subject were actually what he planned to say if anyone walked in on him or detected the power use.

He glanced around; Megare, of course, had nothing labeled. She could label anything at a moment's notice by getting the necessary vocabulary from whoever needed it--he smiled, remembering the herb cabinets and their Greek labels, which language she'd have got from Bob, and done to annoy Harry, who'd just dropped her on her tailbone; then there was the cabinet full of mineral samples--that one over there--which she'd labeled in English, when Bob and Harry started out to perform an innocent little spell, and summoned a demogorgon.

She kept mineral samples over there--possibly the crystals would be nearby.

As he poked around, he told himself he wasn't swiping it from her--he would show it to her and ask if he could use it. It would be easier to communicate his question with her that way. She could talk now, meaningful speech, but it was taking time and cooperation on their parts; it would be a little while before she was really conversational--in any language at all, or all of them.

He found the crystals lined up in ranks of size, according to function and capacity, in a cabinet with dedicated and undedicated crystals--this needed no labeling; a wizard could feel the spells inherent in them and what they were for. He found a blank one that would do for data storage and closed its drawer, then the door of the cabinet.

"Greetings," boomed the athanor.

He nearly had a heart attack, and the jagged edge of the crystal cut into his palm as he jumped, gripping it. Damned Drake strength--he calmed himself before turning around. "Hello, Cruachan."

"Wizard Eryl. Do you require assistance? Your hand is bleeding. I shall summon--"

"No, no--watch." He stared down at his palm, and the cut was gone in a moment. "See? Only needs the blood washed off. I'm not actually healing it, you understand; I only remake the form I'm in to disinclude it. It's quite simple, really."

"That is convenient. I apologize for startling you. I was in my resting state, but detected unusual power usage; and the last I had seen, everyone in the house was safe and asleep--you were with Wizard Dresden."

"Yes, I was…I woke and simply…decided to come here for awhile, rather than wake Harry. But I think I'm sleepy again. I'm going to ask Megare in the morning for the use of this crystal." That might be too much information--volunteering information made one look apologetic, and weakened one's position--but the imp would have a vested interest; it was part of the possessions of the house. Eryl was a guest of the house, not the owner--Cruachan would have asked. Better to forestall that, since there was no telling how he'd phrase it, and Eryl didn't want to lie to anyone he loved. It made him feel more alone.

It was a good thing to know, though, that using the device to communicate with Mai would wake Cruachan after a bit. It had been a half hour this time. Mai could do a data shoot in much less time; he would explain, and request the data, because it probably wouldn't take as long for the odd energy use, once heard and recognizable, to summon Cruachan a second time, and he couldn't be certain the "helpful imp", as Megare had so often called him, would ignore it. He'd likely come to either investigate or help, whichever turned out to be called for.

"You have removed the house from the in-between."

"Ah--yes, I was seeing…just seeing what I could do, and there were some experiments that involved the outside--"

"I assumed as much. I only wondered if you would like me to return the house to the in-between--or were you not yet finished for the evening?"

"No, I'm done. I'll…go back and see if I can sleep some more."

"Very well. I will return the house, and see you at breakfast."

"Looking forward to it. Rest well, my friend," he said sincerely. He had to catch himself from making any sort of noise about Cruachan not mentioning this. At this point, he knew nothing very incriminating.

Cruachan bounded back into the athanor--the closest thing in the room to a hearth--and vanished.

"Oh, bloody hell, what am I doing," Eryl sighed to himself, forehead resting in the palm that wasn't holding the crystal.

He stood there silently a moment, then decided that he'd better try to calm down a bit before he returned to bed; if Harry woke and he wasn't there, he might come find him, but if he found him in the gym, working off steam, he probably wouldn't ask any questions.

He paused and left the crystal in the bureau, in the bedroom where his things still were; they'd been sleeping in Harry and Bob's room.

He ended up with a practice staff--a thick, hard bamboo jo stick--in his hands, beating the shit out of a mat rollup, after he'd warmed up. Somehow, going through forms and such just wasn't doing it for him right now. He hadn't even known he knew any sort of staff fighting, but he should have realized Bob would have known quarterstaff. It had just looked--and he smiled, remembering saying something similar to Mai--like it would be a satisfying thing, to take a solid (enough) stick and whale away on something. Apparently, he could whale like a professional. Was there nothing Bob didn't know? And more impressively, know how to do as well as he knew the theory?

Finally he began to tire, but he ignored it; then he began to tire more deeply, and he knew that he'd go all Drake on himself if he didn't stop. He dropped the stick and bent at the waist, hands on his knees, panting.

His hands; he lifted them and turned them over. They weren't used to any sort of stick fighting--they weren't used to the practice blades, either, or any of the real swords he practiced against conjured partners with--but for some reason, those were callusing without blistering. He supposed the shock, the different way of holding the stick, the blows…he started to reform his palms again, and stopped.

He didn't know why, but he just didn't want to reform the blisters that were going to start coming up very soon.

He carefully replaced the jo in the rack, pulled off the sweat-soaked undershorts and t-shirt he was wearing, and got a towel to mop the worst sweat off with; then he returned to the hallway where the guest rooms were.

He dumped his towel in the magic laundry bin and stood undecided, not wanting to wake Harry, but wanting his presence, even though he couldn't explain why he felt so lost and upset.

Finally he went into the bathroom that adjoined Harry and Bob's room, turned on the shower, got in and shut the door. He stood in the hot stream, leaning his back against the wall, letting the water run down and sting his palms.

He hadn't moved when the shower door opened and Harry joined him. He opened his eyes and turned his head a bit, but didn't move otherwise. Harry slid an arm around his waist and leaned against the wall with him, stroking beads of water from his face.

"Feel better?" he asked. "All the imaginary enemies are dead?" He smiled.

"They're not so imaginary," Eryl sighed. "And they're certainly not dead, but I think I've taken the heart out of them for one night."

Harry reached for his hand, and Eryl winced a bit, reflexively pulling it away. "Hey, what--let me see." Harry turned the hand over, eyed the redness becoming more pronounced. "You were staff fighting."

"Um…yes. How did you…?"

"Bob insisted on martial arts training. He said there would be times magic couldn't help me, and then my nonmagical lessons and the ability to defend myself would be my greatest assets."

"No wonder I didn't just know it in theory--I could do it."

"Yeah. It wasn't all that long ago that I did it."

"I thought I got it from Bob."

"You probably did, some of it anyway. I know the guy can staff fight; he coached me the days my trainer wasn't there. All I could do then were exercises against a dummy, though; he wouldn't let me conjure a partner. Eryl, why haven't you done anything about this?"

"I don't really know," Eryl whispered.

"Would you now?"

"I'd rather not."

Harry considered him, lifted the hand he was holding to kiss it on an unreddened spot, which had probably been his original intention. He used that gesture even more than either of the other two, who also liked it, and Eryl and Bob both found it very like Harry.

"Let me try?" he asked softly.

"Do you think you can?"

"I think that a shapeshifting person is still made of living tissue; it's built-in spells that allow the shapeshifting in the case of Drakes, not that their bodily tissue is inherently any different. Yeah, I think I can heal them."

Eryl lifted his other hand quickly, and Harry held each one a moment, gold light riffling about their fingers, down to the wrist; and Eryl turned them over, healed.

He smiled. "Thank you," he said, and felt an unaccountable sproing inside, as of a spring wound too tightly finally being unhooked and let expand again.

"You're just a little different," Harry whispered into his nearer ear. "Just a little different. You were always different, Eryl. I know you miss your own body, but this one is as good or better. You're used to the way you were and the way things were in my body, but you had to get used to that in an incredibly short time. It's just that it's all you've known. This will become just as familiar. I promise you."

"And you won't let me go all nasty-Drake on you."

"We won't let you do that. You're human, and the body you wear is so nearly human you get welts from practice sticks. Which I can heal like I would heal…Megare. Or a cat. You're just another animal with all us animals, Eryl. We still love you just the same."

Eryl's eyes had sheened up, but in the shower, it wasn't such a pain. The mist and water droplets and heat made it less obvious. "You are much better at that sort of thing than your memories led me to believe," he murmured. "I wish you wouldn't doubt yourself so much. Your father, and Bob, can't have caused that. I know they loved you."

"I know they did, too," Harry sighed. "It wasn't them. It was a lot of things. Still is. I don't wanna think about bein' a head case right now, okay?"

"Okay," Eryl agreed. If Harry was willing to simply comfort him and not make him talk, he could do the same for Harry.

Besides, Harry was kissing him, and so Eryl suddenly found it very easy to quash any thought of the fact that he wasn't sure what he was doing in some ways, and that--at times--he felt more than a little out of control.

* * *

"Harry…"

"Mm-hm," Harry said, his hand moving through Eryl's hair. (He apparently had a growing fascination for Eryl's hair. During sex, it became an almost indiscernible little kink. Eryl carefully never voiced his suspicions about why.)

From his position resting his head on Harry's stomach, Eryl continued "Have you ever…found yourself doing, or even thinking, one thing, and then turning around and behaving in just the opposite fashion?"

"What time is it?"

"I'm serious."

"So am I. If you're finding you do that, baby, you get it from me. Not Bob. He's the most single-minded sonofabitch I've ever known. And okay, he raised me from eleven years old, so I'm a little, uh, overimpressed with that fact."

"He loved you," Eryl said softly, wrapping an arm around Harry's body to squeeze him a bit. "So terribly much…"

"I know," Harry said quietly. "I never know what to say, when you get into our memories, and you get…you look so…"

Eryl smiled a little. "Wistful?"

"Sometimes. Sometimes right off the end of wistful into sad. You're…okay, this isn't usually my kind of line, but you're a beautiful person, Eryl. It sucks that you're sad so much of the time."

"I suppose I'm lonely."

"And I can't come down on you for it, because even if I had me and Bob…I probably would be, too, if I had nearly all of my and Bob's memories, and comparatively speaking, almost none of my own."

"And even the ones I remember…the ones that I'm so sure, that I can feel, are from when I was living in my own body…that wasn't me. It was you and Bob."

"We've talked about that. There's no way to say. What Bob did should have been impossible…and an Angel was involved. If one impossible thing can be done by a magical dead man, another can be done by an Angel."

"I know, I know, hypotheses, possibilities…that doesn't mean the idea doesn't haunt me."

"I just bet it does," Harry said, pulling Eryl's free hand up to kiss it and rubbing his shoulders soothingly. "I just bet it does. It's pretty obvious that there's a lot that haunts you."

"You and Bob both know what that's like."

"Yeah. We do."

"Well, I'm new at it. It will take time before I'm not so visibly morose, I'm afraid. I'll have to learn to get on with things and not dwell, the way the both of you had to learn it."

"That's true, but I hate to leave it there. I want to tell you that it'll be okay someday. I can promise you this much--like I said earlier, it will be better. Because you'll notice--all the stuff we're talking about--that's stuff that would have plagued you even if you kept your own body and didn't end up in a Drake's."

Eryl was silent a moment, then said "You're right. Hm."

"Do you think…maybe the Drake thing could be irrelevant to the main problem? I mean, the Drake thing entails its own hassles, major or minor depending on how much energy you end up having to spend dealing. I mentioned earlier--you've always been different. And you are brand new, no matter how it feels sometimes--I know what it's like, feeling a million years old."

"I have six hundred years worth of memories, and yours on top of them. It's a bit different."

"I have Bob's memories now, too, as a result of, well, you. But you're right, it's probably different; I bet it's pretty overwhelming to someone with only a few weeks worth of their own memories, who's thinking its unsure that even those memories are really theirs."

Tears sprang to Eryl's eyes, but he was getting used to that--it had happened in his human body, too--and ignored them. "You have absolutely no idea. Bob's memories are even overwhelming for Bob, and he spent most of that time as a ghost; the only sensory input to the memory he has to deal with is sight and sound. It doesn't seem to matter at all. It's that he was aware, he existed, he knew what was going on at all, and that gives him enough to feel every second of that time if he allows himself to."

"He doesn't allow it very often, though sometimes it catches up with him and he has to take ten."

"No, he doesn't. And yes, it does."

They were quiet for a while.

Finally Eryl said, very softly, "I think…I'm less worried about not being human, and more…about not being real."

Harry got him by the shoulders; as he figured out the intent of the movements, Eryl cooperated, and Harry pulled him up to lie close.

"That's scary as hell," Harry said, stroking Eryl's hair. "I get that shit some days, some really bad days, and I have a whole lifetime of my own memories. I can't imagine what that must be like for you."

"Don't try. It's unpleasant in the extreme."

"Yeah. Sucks rocks."

Eryl smiled. "I like that one."

"Feel free to use it. I didn't invent it."

"I think it'd sound a bit odd coming from me."  
"You should hear the slang that comes from Bob sometimes."

Eryl smiled again, and rested his head on Harry's shoulder, wrapping his arms around him. "I have, in a manner of speaking."

"He likes to yank my chain with it." Harry grinned.

"He can be as silly as anyone else, in his way."

"I'm glad he can…knowing everything he knows…he wanted to protect me, but then…"

"I know. I don't want to know it either. I have nothing to…"

"Nothing to hang on to, inside. Don't think about it. Hang on to me. We love you--I love you. You're ours, and we won't give you up. Hang on to that."


	25. Chapter 25

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the characters and I don't own this story.

**_LOUD AND CLEAR! I DO NOT, HAVE NOT AND WILL NOT EVER OWN THIS STORY!_**

**This story is the property of Tang Guangzhen who was kind enough to give me permission to post this here. Any flames about that will be used to fry your ass.**

**Thank You**

* * *

They tried to keep a schedule for meals, all of them, so Megare would have the comfort of the routine and could see them all several times a day, and arrange what she wanted to do and who she wanted to do it with. Sometimes all she could handle was sleep, in which case the rest of them still ate together whenever possible, liking the company in their ongoing shared concern for her. Cruachan usually insisted on serving, and since he could serve a complete breakfast for everyone in about ten seconds with the help of his own hearth-impness and Megare's kitchen, they saw no reason not to let him. If the breakfast was simple, he could do it even faster.

He apparently decided on faster today so he could sit down, too, as Bob came in with Megare--leaning on his arm.

"Hey, hey, hey--look who's up!" Harry said, rising from his chair and starting to reach for her.

"Please to stay back," she said quickly, holding out her free hand to forestall his approach.

This time Eryl laughed and applauded. "That's you, all right!"

She smirked at him, then smiled at Harry. "Not to fall me."

"I get it, I won't fall you."

Bob said "Her balance is a bit precarious, Harry, but she's got her strength. If she falls, she'll probably hurt herself six times on the way down, with her reflexes trying to catch her."

"Then I will beat myself up on floor. Very bad."

"Extremely bad," Harry agreed, leaning down to carefully peck her cheek. Bob walked her over to Eryl so he could greet her the same way.

"Is it always so difficult to return to human form after becoming Y Ddraig Goch?" Cruachan wondered, flashing invisibly past and leaving a huge, scary Belgian waffle, covered with whipped cream and fresh berries of every description, in the middle of the table, and small plates with silverware at everyone's place. On the next pass was a carafe of coffee, one of black tea, one of Megare's relaxation potion, and mugs and glasses at everyone's place, with little pitchers of milk and cream and a bowl of sugar cubes placed at even intervals down the table.

"Thank you," she said, "helpful imp. No. Not usual. But sometimes. Happened, formerly, before. Before. Has happened before."

"Shall I?" Bob said, pouring her a glass of herbal potion and a mug of tea.

She nodded.

As he went to cut her a good slice of waffle, he said "She had to change to human form without any preparation; it was the only way to receive the healing she needed, and Mai and I didn't have the time or the leftover energy, after that, to help her very much in that area. Especially since it takes a great deal of power to perform any magical act upon Megare, as you may recall from trying to heal her tailbone."

Eryl snorted. Harry kicked him under the table.

"Harry, Eryl, not at the table," Bob said, bopping them both on the head with the spoon he'd stirred Megare's tea with as he walked by behind them to return the tea to its warmer, after pouring his own.

They both subsided, giving each other threatening looks that threatened mostly to break into snickers. Harry mouthed "Bob is anal" at Bob's back, and Eryl had to stuff waffle in his mouth to avoid making a noise to go with his bugging eyes.

Without looking around, Bob sighed "I told you when you were eleven that that's extremely childish, Harry."

"What'd you expect? I was a child."

"What's your excuse now?"

"You're anal."

Eryl barked a laugh through his waffle and had to rescue the situation with his napkin.

Megare giggled softly. Bob gave her a rather fawning look--apparently Harry could mess with him all he wanted if it made Megare laugh--and continued "In any event, what Megare is going through is natural for the circumstances; usually, she's able to transform back to human under less…pressing conditions."

"Pressing is right, in about half a dozen ways," Eryl muttered. "From Bob's eyes…I remember--thinking how I'd not be able to reach her, she was falling--but then Mai was up, when Morgan brought her, and Mai carried her to me…she was…"

"Ssh, Eryl. Not to be crying in waffle, please. I have been bad. Worse. Yes. Worse."

"Mai…you know, that hadn't occurred to me," Harry said. "Mai and you healing her, Bob, doesn't exactly cancel the debt Mai owes Megare. Those nutball Drakes are done, her life is no longer in danger at least from them, and she doesn't just owe Eryl for that. She owes Megare just as much."

"I need nothing," Megare said, eyeing Harry.

"It's just…I didn't expect…I thought if Mai knew about you…"

"I know Mai. We do…no harm. I have been help. She is help to me. We talk not much. She does not owe."

Harry demanded "Maybe not usually, Megare, not the way you just…ignore each other unless something comes up, but…what is between you, anyway? Why did Mai go through all that to get Eryl, without even knowing exactly what she expected me to enable Bob to do--when she knew about you? What you could do for her, and what--I mean, why take such a chance when she could have had your help--at least asked for it?"

"She cannot have. I cannot have. It would destroy."

"Destroy…what? How?" Eryl wondered softly.

Bob paused, swallowing his current bite and laying his fork down, then reaching for her hand. "Let me help, milady," he murmured.

She took his hand and gazed at him. "Thousands of years ago, I loved Mai," she said, causing them all to freeze solid--even the surface of Cruachan's bowl of cream stopped undulating as he stopped sipping at its essence.

She continued "She loved me. But it became necessary for us to separate, permanently. She performed a spell. If she ever comes to me with intent, speaks to me of future things, tries to return to me--she will be destroyed. If I ever do…anything of that, I will be destroyed." She blinked, let go of Bob's hand, picked her fork up awkwardly in her fist, and aimed carefully for her waffle slice before stabbing down through the berries and whipped cream to the cake.

No one at the table spoke.

Megare continued to eat, and then so did Cruachan, and then so did the other three. There were questions jabbering on the faces and in the heads of the two humans and one Drake, but they stayed there; though she had to be aware of them, she didn't say another word, so it was pointless to ask for more detail, and it was hard to think of a way to change the subject after that.

"Megare," Bob said softly. "I will ask you no more after this--no one here will, not without incredibly extreme cause. But one thing: She carried you to me, as I said. She helped me heal you, very carefully, with all the energy either of us had, and it took that much, being you. Are either of you in danger now? Does that contact fall under the prohibition of the spell?"

"No." She spoke that one syllable through her waffle mouthful, swallowed, and reached for her glass of herbal potion with her other hand. "I…it is intent."

"And, your being unconscious, there could be no forbidden intent on either of your parts--none at all on your part, and all her intent at that moment was to heal you, not speak to you of…anything at all."

"Yes." Megare said that through waffle, too. Her appetite wasn't suffering, at least. "We have spoken." She swallowed. "Brief. Point. Stay removed. We do not often."

"I understand," Bob said softly.

Eryl was sitting very quietly, with his eyes closed and his fork stuck in his waffle. He was taking deep breaths; Harry, next to him, watched him, but kept eating. In a few seconds, Eryl opened his eyes and began working on his own breakfast again.

* * *

Eryl didn't show Megare the crystal. Now that he knew, he knew it would be kinder not to bring the idea of Mai up to her in any way.

But he knew she wouldn't grudge him the use of it, would she?

Of course not.

"Mai."

"Eryl. Is everything ready?"

"Yes, it is. We should have a moment, that being the case."

"A moment? Something you need to ask?"

"Yes, there is. What was the reason for the spell that you worked to keep you and Megare apart from each other?"

Mai was still and silent; not even her blinking pattern changed. It must completely impossible to play poker with her, he thought irrelevantly, and immediately fifty ways to cheat at poker wandered through his head, courtesy of Harry's knowledge of card-tricks and Bob's cherished but only occasionally indulged desire to pervert everything. He silenced the fifty ways and tossed them into the bottomless rubbish bin.

She finally said "Megare is a telempath. How far do you trust your ability to keep our conversations from her even now? After you have that to think about, do you think she'll be able not to notice?"

"I must know. I can't explain why, not yet."

"I value your friendship--and your presence on this planet--extremely highly, Eryl. I hope you know that. I don't want to endanger you or make trouble for you."

"And I'm sorry to bring up what cannot be easy memories, especially after what just happened with…the plant roof. I will tell you that Megare is doing well. None of us understood that this wasn't normal, nor that it had happened to her before--we were very worried until she was able to share with Bob that the problems she's having integrating into a human body were because she had to return to her human form without the preparation and process."

"Yes, I figured she'd be down with it. But she's better, you say."

"Bob takes care of her every moment of every day, unless Harry or I can pry her away from him for a bit. She understands him easily, has the easiest time picking words out from him, so he assumed he should--"

"Of course; he's dead, it would be much easier for her." Mai shrugged. "She will recover fully, be the Megare you're used to. It might not be so, if we hadn't healed her so quickly, if she'd stayed unconscious, or if I hadn't been present to make sure her human motor functions were reconnected. They were still latent when I finished, but they were all intact."

"Oh, my God. If you hadn't been there…"

"The temporary functions she was using to walk to me were…rather like jury rigged short circuits, jumping past those disconnections. That'll work for a little while, but it's extremely unstable and dangerous, and it'll burn out in just a few minutes of use. If I hadn't been there, when she fainted…she'd have woken up Y Ddraig Goch again. I'm not sure what would have happened after that. The circumstances were…awkward, and for reasons you know, I could be of no help to her. Lacking Bainbridge's curse, I can help no one if I'm dead. But Eryl, think about it. If I hadn't been there, you wouldn't have been there, and so she wouldn't have been there."

"That…that's true." Eryl cleared his throat. "Thank you for helping her."

"Thank you for calling her, and for being there for her to come to. She couldn't have come to me."

"No, she couldn't help you either, if she were dead," Eryl muttered. "She explained that much. Please, Mai. I'm trying to show trust in you, and I'm doing it in a way that I admit is making me feel guilty over the deception. Harry and Bob are my only harbor--"

"That's not true. You know there's me."

"--who love me, except for Megare, and I'm not only deceiving her, I stole her crystal."

Mai was silent, waiting.

"So, I would appreciate it if…you could satisfy me on this point. What was the reason for that spell, and what is the mechanism of the spell?"

"To tell the mechanism of the spell would invoke it. The reason for the spell was this. It became clear that power rested with us--that we were the most powerful beings in the world; search as we might, we could find no one to equal us. From as far apart as we came in the world, we still found each other very quickly after each of us performed an operation strong and long-lasting enough for the other to sense.

"When we came together, I knew I had found more than my love--I'd found my heart, my soul, everything that had seemed missing in me that had made me afraid of my own power, and had made me shunned. Megare…she found clarity and peace she had not known she longed for. She found a way to communicate with humans, whose society she much preferred to that of Draconians--"

"She learned how to--she learned that from you?"

"I didn't teach it to her, if that's what you're asking. She learned it as a result of…exposure to me, a result of joining to me."

"Joining to you."

"Yes. We were still two, Eryl, not like Bob and Harry made you, with her help, doubtless with her technology, which is different from the modern in many specifics. We were…together, though, in both of us. Never alone. Never apart. Complete in ourselves, and complete with each other, for the first time, for both things."

Eryl shuddered, his lips pressing together for a moment. "Go on," he finally said. "The spell. The reason for it."

"No doubt you have heard the expression 'power corrupts'."

He shook his head. "You can't mean…" he controlled himself. "Go on."

"The expression is true. It's the reason for our modern rules of magic. Megare and I were so powerful, nothing could be beyond us. We raised civilizations. We prevented massive natural disasters. We communicated with entities we believed must be from other dimensions, or planes of existence--some of them doubtless were, and some of them we doubtless should not have trusted as we did." She thought, and continued. "We did as we pleased, because we knew we were simple, good people, with no desire other than to help and create. We didn't even have a prejudice of species, and sought the best for all living individuals we came in contact with.

"Only later did we realize, as the atmosphere changed, and the sun, which had always been beyond our power to affect--or so we thought--began to kill everything alive that needed it to live (which is, ultimately, everything alive in the world) that we had changed too much too quickly, interrupted a natural cycle that was taking place over too much time even for us to determine--that we'd manage to touch the workings of this cycle at all still stuns me, with the level of our power--and we realized that we would not be able to change it back in time, that we had destroyed the world.

There was one more thing we could do, but we had to make it inviolate. So we went to a place underground, shielded from the killing sunlight, and we took everything back, by taking the world back."

"Time," Eryl said. "One of the laws…you reversed time."

"We did not reverse time; we went back in it ourselves. We spoke to ourselves in that earlier time, before we met. We each gave ourselves a complex crystal-and-mineral spell machine, one which contained detailed information, and…other things. Megare's created the place she lives now, though she didn't make it right away.

"After we did that…we vanished."

"But…what happened to the ones who gave you…"

"Since we still have the devices and information, it cannot be that those happenings never occurred. Therefore, there is a time loop a long way back--a long time ago--too long ago to be disturbed by anyone from this time who doesn't know about it. It circles endlessly from the day Megare and I realized the presence of the Other, to the day we touched our Selves of the past, telling part of the story, leaving the rest in the spell, so we would both know everything, both know nothing was held back, both know why it had to be this way."

"Oh, Gods," Eryl whispered. "You're the past selves. You…you know Megare is…is your heart and soul and everything you've ever longed for, and you also know…that if you meet her, you'll--some way, not meaning to, perhaps, but some way--you'll destroy the world. It happened before in a way you could never have foreseen, when you had nothing but good in mind and--you thought--in action."

"I can't let you see what I saw, to convince me of that," Mai said. "I promised I would never do that to anyone. But if we were together again…there is no way past it. It would have to happen again. It is impossible not to interfere in destiny, when suffering is happening before your eyes, over and over and over, and you could stop it, with just a word, just a gesture. It's impossible, Eryl."

"I believe you. Mai, how did…Megare's speaking, if she got it from you--"

"It was all in the spell machines. I've been with her, I've given her everything I gave her when we touched. She's been with me, and I found my heart for a few moments. I was with her, she was with me, we were together as two and we were one. It was there. To convince us, and to give us both…enough to survive without the other."

"And…the spell that would destroy you. That was in these machines, too. Probably activated automatically when your presence was sensed."

"No. I created it, with help. Her help, from a distance."

Eryl was silent a moment, contemplating thousands of years of life like this, compared to his own suffering with a few weeks of life he wasn't even sure were his. "You didn't trust yourselves."

"We were right not to trust ourselves. We almost convinced each other we could…leave. Go somewhere there would be nothing for us to harm. But we realized…we would know there was harm, and we'd convince ourselves again. We didn't understand what it meant, that power corrupts. It doesn't mean it turns good people evil. It means it makes goodness itself into evil."

"Megare--did she realize--"

"I realized. Megare doesn't like evil, doesn't understand it. That wasn't what she was, in us. I was that. I had to tell her that if she came to me, I would be dead by the time she got to me. And that if I came to her, she would be better off dead, because she and I would kill ourselves in grief over what would happen."

"And so you made it more literally true. You created a spell to kill whichever of you tries to go to the other, with the intent of…loving, being with her."

"Yes, I did. Take a look around, Eryl. Are you sure you're alone?"

Eryl's senses detected no one, not even Cruachan for the moment. "No one's here but me. It's the middle of the night here, as I said."

"All right. You wanted to know the mechanism of the spell."

"You said telling the mechanism would invoke it--a very wise precaution, if heartbreaking."

"Telling Megare the mechanism would invoke it. Telling you…you wanted trust, and to know why you should trust me. I'm going to give you a very, very great burden now. Listen. The mechanism of the spell is that I told Megare there was such a spell."

There was a brief silence.

"That's…you fooled her? She thinks you did some kind of…of monster foolproof spell to kill--"

"Destroy. I didn't lie."

"Destroy. To destroy her if she came to you, and you if you came to her? You told her that was so when there is no such spell at all?"

"And that is the mechanism whereby the spell works," Mai said. "I let her think it exists."

"But--she's so powerful, wouldn't she know? And she knows you so well--"

"And I am powerful, and I know her so well. And Eryl--she trusts me. She knows power will not corrupt me in the usual meaning of the phrase. Hard, cold, I am. But not corrupted. And lacking enough power on my own to quite destroy the world--just as she does. Just as we both will--so long as you don't invoke the spell by letting her know. You thought you could keep it from her. Do you still? If not, I suggest you get out of there very quickly by any means necessary, and allow me to find you and retrieve you."

"No, that would be the most suspicious thing I could do. I am a Drake. My brain is not human, and I'm willing to bet I can keep a telempath out of my intentions…if I wish to."

"You're in love with her. Can you bear to do that?"

"You are more in love with her than I think I could ever be with anyone alive…and you've borne it for thousands of years. I wanted to know; I demanded you tell me. I'll do it."

"So I hand you a terrible burden…and you simply carry it. That's a whole different level of trust. You will pull away from her--you will let her think you withdraw from her, in order to save her. That's cruel, but it's love."

"You're mistaken, Mai. I'm doing it for you. So that your sacrifice won't be in vain."

She gazed at him across thousands of miles, both of them seeing each other inside their own eyes. Eryl's lids trembled a little. "Still for love, I suppose. For friendship."

She nodded, slowly. "For friendship. I should send your data now."

"The crystal's ready."

"I'll speak to you again 'tomorrow' night, for you, in case anything doesn't come through, or you have other questions."

"I'll…I'll be here."

She seemed to fade back, and he opened his eyes and took down the crystal needles from his temples, and set them at opposite points of the crystal.

A high humming sounded and light touched the crystal, turning it from clear to bright yellow. He watched it idly, thinking about friendship, and cruelty, and love. And promises.


	26. Chapter 26

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the characters and I don't own this story.

**_LOUD AND CLEAR! I DO NOT, HAVE NOT AND WILL NOT EVER OWN THIS STORY!_**

**This story is the property of Tang Guangzhen who was kind enough to give me permission to post this here. Any flames about that will be used to fry your ass.**

**Thank You**

* * *

"Bob."

Bob looked up from the notes he was making, other papers scattered around on the writing desk. "Eryl," he said softly.

Eryl glanced toward the bed. "She's asleep?"

"Like a log, and not likely to be disturbed, don't worry. I don't really need to be here; but she has been kind, and allows me to nurse my paranoia by remaining joined at the hip with her." He smiled. Then he gazed more closely at Eryl for a moment, and the smile changed. "Oh, dear," Bob sighed, shaking his head. "My love, what is it you've done? Does it have to do with your taking the house out of the inbetween every now and then?"

Eryl blinked. "Can you…like Megare…?"

"Not like Megare at all. It's just that you look exactly like Harry did as a boy--he still looks the same sometimes--when he came to me to confess something. With Harry, it was almost never anything that required much in the way of correction; sometimes it required nothing at all. But you aren't Harry, and these circumstances are different, and…I think that look might bode something a bit…less innocent."

"It's not so terrible," Eryl murmured, and smiled a little. "Though you definitely won't like it. I'm telling you one at a time because I don't think I could deal with reaction from both of you."

"I get to be first? I'm honored."

"Harry is going to burst a blood vessel. You won't."

"Ah. Of course."

"I've been talking with Mai, the past few nights, getting answers to questions…and answering some of hers, yes. She's made some preparations for me in Chicago, having to do with finance and the studio I plan to open. But mostly, she's been telling me everything I need to know about my fascinating new body. Did you know that if I shifted into the form of a woman, I could make it precise enough to actually engender and bear a child?"

"Yes, I did. You can at least engender children in that form, too, so you'll want to be careful about that."

"I don't think Harry needs to worry. He's the only person I've ever had sex with, as myself."

"Yes, and I'm getting a little impatient. But we were discussing your information exchanges with Mai…"

Eryl held out his hand, which held a crystal that glinted in the light. "She sent me a bit of data; I thought you might like to be there while I transfer it and read it. It probably mostly covers what we've talked about, since I mentioned you've been busy with the data she gave you, concerning your curse--for which I don't blame you. You and Harry are very deeply affected by that, possibly even to the levels of health and life."

"I assumed you would…simply ask, my dear, if you were that anxious for information and answers, but you seemed to be struggling with more esoteric questions than any of us could give you a reasonable answer to."

Eryl smiled again. "Harry's doing a fine job, actually, so far--apparently sex makes me talkative about such things, and he's been willing to listen. He's much better at that sort of thing than he thinks."

Bob smiled. "He is, isn't he? Have you told him so?"

"Yes. He was typically…" Eryl looked annoyed, rolling his eyes once, "…modest."

"Self-effacing, in other words." Bob sighed. "Yes, I agree that gets tiresome. Does he believe--no, I mustn't complain. After all, I could have done more to help him, probably, when it was relevant--when it would have had more impact. What else do you need to tell me, Eryl? I'm waiting my reaction on the fullness of the delinquency."

Eryl chuckled. "So far, that's it. That and…Mai told me some things that I'm not going to be able to tell you. I can tell you they have nothing whatever to do with me, and nothing whatever to do with you. They're simply…personal, and it's vital that they not be spread about. I agree with her reasons."

Bob examined him, and then nodded. "I cannot upbraid Harry for trying to shepherd you too closely, and then call your judgment into question over something like this. You have, and will continue to have, a relationship with Mai that Harry and I are not part of; and perhaps that is the best thing for you. I must remember that you are not human, and may have need for a special relationship with the head of the White Council if you are to live among human wizards as one of their number--as a wizard, at least, if not as a human. And whether or not it's a good idea, you do have that right, though it makes me nervous…and you're correct that Harry will probably not react well at all, at first. Mai has never trusted him even slightly, and he is understandably resentful. What I think makes him angry about it is that she is unapologetic--even Morgan is more diplomatic than Mai. Harry has tried to show reasonable deference--he believes in and respects the authority of the Council, knowing that we need to be rather severely controlled, considering what we are capable of if left to our own twisted perspectives with that much power; she does not seem to see his willing compliance with the idea of her authority. But then, she does not trust the man, either, and he is the most trustworthy creature I've ever known."

Eryl smiled suddenly, but didn't laugh in respect of Megare's sleep. "That is very true."

"In any event, yes, I would like to be present while you examine the data. I will make the other crystal solid Mai gave me available to you…though it contains some things that…" he looked away. "Things having to do with my transgressions…some of the details. It's nothing I should be afraid to tell either of you, considering that if you looked hard enough, you could find it in your own memories, anyway. Though I don't recommend it. It's quite unedifying, and hard enough to keep it buried in my own mind."

"Bob, if you don't want it called to mind, I understand; you've transferred most of that data. Reserve anything that has only to do with your sentencing and such, and just tell me the relevant parts so that I'll know what's happening with you and Harry."

Bob nodded. "All right. Perhaps we should go to the library--what Megare calls a 'sick comm' is on. It will alert me if she has any problems."

"Good idea." The gold lights on here and there around the room lowered a bit more as the two of them slipped out quietly, closing the door softly.

Eryl took Bob's free hand as they walked, but didn't say anything when Bob looked inquiringly at him. As they reached the library, Eryl pulled him toward one of the large tables, where he set the crystal down, turned to Bob, relieved him of the papers and notes in his other hand and set them down too, then took that hand.

"I believe," he murmured, stepping in close, "you said something about 'impatient'."

"Hmm, so I did," Bob said, nuzzling Eryl's cheek; Eryl made a soft sound and nuzzled back. "Is this my reward for taking your confession so well?"

"Actually I'd wondered if I ought to do this part first, but I decided not to be quite that manipulative."

"Yes, that might have backfired." He nibbled his way along Eryl's jawbone to his mouth, and at the kiss, they released each other's hands so they could embrace tightly.

Eryl was caught between thrilling and wondering if he should be horrified. He remembered this--not this specifically, but Bob's body, the way he kissed--Gods, the way he kissed--is a way he hadn't remembered it with Harry; he remembered being Bob with Harry, but Bob was in a different body, even if it had been human. Even his dreaming experiences felt different, because his body wasn't of the exact dimensions of Harry's.

Some things were different, because Eryl was a Drake. But a lot of it was as if this were not the first time he'd done this--he knew it couldn't be the first time, and yet the Eryl part of him knew emphatically that it was--and he found himself seriously disoriented.

When he actually swayed in Bob's arms, Bob broke their current kiss and said "Steady, my dear boy. Let's have a seat." He helped Eryl sway over to a short sofa in a "window"-seat spot, but remained standing, close to him, so Eryl could hang onto him and steady himself. "Just breathe for a moment."

"I'm sorry, Bob, this is idiotic."

"It isn't, and you know it. You're in a precise copy of Harry's body, in terms of dimensions; the differences are negligible in terms of…what you feel with it. You just had an incredible sense of, well, déjà vu, did you not?"

"You could call it that. I was…there, I would swear I was there, somewhere I've never…"

"I know this is probably no help to you, but it could be worse. If you were in a human body that was this much like Harry's, you'd probably have leaped back horrified, and if you'd been in Harry's, you would probably have fainted with reaction. You literally wouldn't have known your own mind."

"You knew I'd react like this? Thanks for the warning."

"My dear, I didn't say anything because I didn't know certainly, and I didn't want to plant ideas in your head. You might have handled it far worse, really, even as you are, or perhaps I was wrong entirely and shouldn't be worried--if I'd known anything for certain, I'd have shared it with you."

"I know," Eryl sighed. "I'm all right. Come on, sit down."

"We'll need to take this slow, Eryl, which is probably not your preferred speed--"

"It isn't. But I've been rather busy lately."

"I know. I've been either here or been you for all of it." He kissed Eryl's temple. "But you reeled simply from kissing. At the very least, we should probably be lying down already. It will be less damaging if you faint that way."

"That I'll happily agree with. And shed some clothes. Perhaps I'm just overheated."

"Eryl."

"Bloody hell, I hate this."

"I know, my dear," Bob said as Eryl toppled across his lap in disgust, landing with his head on the armrest on Bob's other side. Bob began to pet him.

"We might as well do the data translation," Eryl muttered.

"If you like, my love."

"Thank you for that. I know you. You wouldn't say it if you didn't mean it."

"I do."

"But I like my name, too."

"Eryl," Bob whispered, leaned down and kissed his cheek. "Oh, I do know who you are. Your personality is very strong, no matter how you may feel about it sometimes."

"I hope it's not too strong. I've noticed I can be rather rude. I got sarcastic with Harry and was slapped with an injunction to stop acting like a Drake."

"Harry is naturally disturbed by any sign of arrogance in you, because there is none in him--but no matter what you look like, you were made as much out of pieces of me, as pieces of him. Blame me for such behavior if he complains of your attitude again; doubtless I'm where you get it. Eryl, to most people, you are a paragon of politeness," Bob smiled. "Especially compared to Harry. Despite his lack of personal arrogance, only his overweening modesty and genuinely loving nature saves him for gentle society. I have no hope for his actual diplomatic skills at all."

Eryl smiled.

* * *

"Sorry," Megare said, coming in to breakfast late, with her hair long and symmetrical again; it was still wet. She was wearing a little tank and a flowing cotton skirt that swirled down from her narrow hips like a red wave. "I thought skirt was a wrap. I put it on, did not feel right. Twenty minutes looking in mirror to know I have skirt on my head."

Eryl horked his bite of biscuit. Harry smacked him on the back; Eryl coughed, swallowed and burst out laughing.

Harry was about to club him over the head with the juice pitcher when he noticed Megare grinning at Eryl. She looked at him and said "It is funny, no?"

Harry felt sheepish. "It is funny, yes. I just didn't know if we should be laughing at you because you're still trying to remember things about being in human form."

"Oh, I am just old and forgetful." Megare smiled as Cru whished past, leaving a full plate in front of her.

Bob, who had just rolled his eyes at Megare's explanation for lateness, smiled at her. "Now, that is always amusing to hear coming from someone who appears to be no more than thirty."

Eryl was starting to wind down. Harry looked at him and wondered "You gonna be okay there, Eryl?"

"Oh, my. Thank you, Megare, that was a lovely mental image."

"Is funny." She cackled.

"That, too." Eryl returned to assaulting his breakfast.

Bob said "I hate to insert a dour note, but I think that once we've eaten, but we should discuss what we'll need to, to prepare for our return to Chicago. After all, we still have Cruachan to think about."

"No. I will think of Cruachan," Megare said. "I can get him good home. We will go to Ireland when I am more good, and we will have no problem."

"I have traveled through Wizard Megare's portal before," Cruachan volunteered from behind his bowl of cream and slab of steak. "It is quite fascinating. I have no worries as to her ability to aid me in finding a suitable place."

"If you guys are sure, because we can--"

Eryl cut Harry off. "Harry, this way Cruachan will be here, Megare won't be alone until she's completely up to form again--and we can leave for Chicago that much earlier. And we do need to get back. Megare can't keep this place out of time forever, if you'll pardon the expression."

"Yeah," Harry sighed. "Just feels like we're leavin' you our work. I mean, I freed him. I oughtta see him okay."

"Is no work," Megare said, batting the idea away with a flick of fingers, and shoveling in another bite.

After breakfast, they gravitated in the direction of the main window room, everyone lost in their own thoughts; "I don't know how to feel about this place," Eryl murmured. "It's not my home, it can't be, and I have a hundred memories of other places that you and Bob have called home…"

"I don't think Megare would mind," Harry said quietly, "if it's the first place you think of when you hear the word."

"Probably not," Eryl sighed. "But it's you and Bob that I wonder about."

"There's a lot to wonder about us."

"I meant, whether you'd mind."

"If my crap apartment isn't the first thing you think of? Hell, no." Harry touched his shoulder. Eryl started to reply, paused and shook his head.

Bob was on a couch; Megare s curled nearby on a floor cushion. Cruachan was not to be seen, but present in the fireplace. Bob had the triangle of bone Mai had given Eryl. He said "In the data Mai gave us, there is a message about this, a short one. It said 'Megare will know what to do with it'." He held the bone out toward Megare.

"It is…ah. Your skull. This was in stasis--"

"Yes. Mai broke the stasis at some risk to herself. She did it personally, just in case she hadn't deactivated the safeguards properly."

"Yes, those wards rescramble. Only Mai or I could have read that, I am fairly sure. Others, who might have seen what they needed to see in the patterns, would not have been able to read."

"I assume these patterns do not translate to words," Eryl said quietly.

"No, or I would not read so easy. This was intended to give way…give you a way to move, go about in the world, without your skull so close. You would have been able to go anywhere you liked--or where your master sent you--invisibly or visibly, as they chose. It was decided this was a freedom you did not need, and the section with the runes spelled in was removed."

"Why was it preserved so carefully?" Bob wondered. "I can see how those who felt I was such a risk while alive did not see how allowing me to spy on them for whoever had custody of my skull would improve the situation very much, but I'd think they'd have just destroyed it."

"I think they did not know a safe way to destroy. I do not know why they had to use the stasis method they did. No one knew how to breach it even then; perhaps that is why. In any event, I can use it to make certain there is no being dragged back. You will…always be the same distance. The spell will think you are always the same distance because I will tell it a distance, and then…um. Imagine--there is a portal in the bone. It will change the distance between you and Harry to no distance." She waited to see if that was sufficient.

Eryl frowned. "You mean…you can use it in a spell that will…cause the distance between Harry and Bob to be eaten up, the way a portal in your teleporting method removes the distance by taking depth out of the space."

She blinked, thought, and said "That is very close. Yes."

"It's close enough for me," Harry said, "how about you, Bob?"

"If Megare believes it is a sound concept and method, I certainly have no objection. I had wondered if my being bound to Harry was going to cause problems--if we would find the distance, eventually, that we could not exceed. I'm as content never to know whether there was such a distance, or what it might have been."

"I'm not that curious either," Harry said. "Will Bob have to carry the bone on him? What if he--"

"I can make it part of you, Harry."

Harry gulped. "How?"

"Part of your bones. Don't worry. It will not have any effect other than this, and you will not be able to deactivate it accidentally."

"Are you sure?"

Rather than launch into the kind of long-winded explanation Bob would have, she just nodded. "Yes. Very sure. We can do later. Will not take long."

"Okay," Harry nodded slowly. He was still a little taken aback, but not especially nervous.

* * *

Harry woke slowly, realizing that he wasn't waking; the sensation, the faint smell of salt--he was glad the reek of seaweed and such seemed to be absent from this moonlit silver shore.

Bob was curled up behind him, and he just lay there a moment, feeling the closeness, the privacy the two of them had like this, and the joining of thought and feeling that slid up and back, there and not there, subtle and unassuming.

"Mm," Bob sighed, and pressed his face against Harry's shoulder, resting an arm over him. "Hello, my darling." He slid his other arm under Harry's waist and squeezed gently with both.

"Hi, baby." Harry got turned over in their embrace and squeezed Bob back.

They were quite for a moment, and finally Harry said it. "Eryl can't join us in this, can he."

Bob sighed. "Not…well, I haven't figured out a way yet. His brain has hardwired defenses that no amount of willingness on the part of the human consciousness that lives in that brain can deactivate. His sleep cycle is also dissimilar to ours, in sufficient particulars, that I don't see any way to make it match closely enough to allow him to join us--even if his defenses allowed it--without disturbing his rest dangerously. I have pondered the question; but pondering won't solve it, if it can be solved. He can't join us here, as things stand, and I feel guilty, being with you here--or anywhere we want to be, in your dreams--knowing he cannot possibly..."

"Damn. I was hoping you…sorry, I know you only seem omniscient. But it's easy to believe you can fix anything. Especially easy for me, though Eryl believes it too."

"Gets it from you, no doubt. I'm surprised either of you still labor under that impression, with the access you have to my experience and thoughts thereon."

Harry squeezed Bob and struggled up sitting. "So. What do you feel like tonight? Personally I think the Library at Alexandria sounds like a good idea, if you think--"

"You'd be bored senseless, my darling," Bob smiled, sitting up too. "I thought perhaps we should talk about the way things are going to be, at home. We'll be going soon, and I'm afraid Eryl is still up in the air about a lot of things. You and I have a great deal to consider as well."

"Yeah." Harry sighed, getting comfortable leaning against a pillow, which he'd set against one of the netting-frame support poles. "For one thing, I don't think Mai can have wanted you…back, as you, only because of her Drake problem. She'd been keeping us together, waiting for opportunities and windfalls, using them when they came her way. She knew Megare might have some kind of influence on us--and that it couldn't be bad. That you can handle Drakes like she can is good, but it can't be her only reason."

"She mentioned wanting someone else who approached being her equal in power to help her with her duties, presumably; and obviously, Megare is not in the running for such a position. Megare operates in hiding, in the shadows and under aliases out in the world; she can't be part of the global network, lest it put her in too-close contact with Mai…their situation must be terrible, to warrant that kind of care to keep them separated. I believe Eryl knows details, but he seems to feel they aren't relevant to our relationship with Mai, and possibly he's as interested in protecting Megare as Mai, so I think we can let him keep his counsel on the subject."

"Yeah." Harry thought. "Okay, so. We know she might want you in part for being another person who can handle Drakes fairly easily--it'd both make them back off a bit, and provide them with a target besides her if any more of them decide that whether she's only a freak or not, she's too inconvenient a freak to put up with, and they're going to erase her. With two of you, they won't dive into a plan of assassination so quickly; they'll think, and wait. But she's also talked about wanting there to be someone else who can do what she does in the various cooperative organizations. You've got the power and the reputation to make more than a feared right-hand man, like Morgan. You could--in your own way, of course, your own style--take over for her, if necessary."

"I would be most thoroughly tested by everyone, you realize, anyone who thought they had a chance of catching me off guard or some such rot."

"Of course. I'm just going through her motives, and your options." Harry sighed. "What do you think?"

"I think she'll have to be very much more concerned with your well being, my darling. If anything happens to you, I am affected. And if you die…well. At least she can never threaten me with your life, not that I think she would ever do that casually. She will know I'm bound to you. But if I'm going to be taking over duties for her at that level of the hierarchy, it had better remain generally unknown that you…"

"That I'm your Achilles heel?" Harry smiled.

"That you are my source, my life. That I am literally nothing without you, just as I would have been destroyed if my skull were smashed. If you are badly enough harmed, I am weakened; if you are killed, I die with you. And by the way, there will be an extreme turnaround in your usual professional methodology."

"Bob, I know that. If my dying means you die too, I'm going to have to be a lot more careful, and I'm…not that thrilled about it, the way I do things is just me, I don't know any other way, I don't try to do things the way I do…changing something like that doesn't happen with a finger snap. I'll just have to…learn to control myself." He sighed.

"I know it won't be easy, my darling. Eryl would help you, there."

"Eryl would relish being the one to ride herd on me and make sure I don't run off half-cocked. But he's going to have his own business to take care of, and his own relationship with Mai to think of. Mai wants you, Bob, and she wants Eryl. Different purposes--and she's been waiting a long time for you, while Eryl's a windfall to her, if an important one. Me, I'm the baggage that needs to be kept around specifically to make sure nothing happens to it, because then she'd lose you."

"I think Mai might decide that as long as she's stuck with close association with you due to wanting whatever she wants out of me, she's going to start focusing on your 'untapped resources'. You have enormous power which you are…hesitant to use. Mai won't be able to leave that alone."

"Terrified, not hesitant," Harry muttered. "And thank you for never pushing me about it."

"It wasn't the way, to push you, beloved. You would come to a place where you felt you could master that power and use it as yourself, rather than be eaten up and be used by it, as happened to your uncle and a number of your other relatives." Bob stroked his hair, and then got comfortable leaning against him.

"So we're going to be seeing a lot of Mai," Harry pondered.

"Yes. And as I said, Eryl is going to have his own business with her; he'll share as much of it with us as he feels he can. He's already willing to hide her 'personal business' from us. Not that he shouldn't; it's just that he became comfortable with the idea very quickly. Frankly, despite everything he has from us…I think Eryl, our memories aside, rather likes Mai."

"I think it's the fact that Mai and Megare were…whatever they were exactly, and didn't break up for the usual reason, you decide to break up--they were forced apart. I think he sympathizes, since he loves Megare, but never had a chance with her."

"It does give them something fairly sizeable in common," Bob nodded. "But also…I think the fact Mai told him these personal details, whatever they were about, that he said he believes should not be spread about…she obviously trusted him with something important to her, maybe even that she's told no one else. That's doubtless made an impression on him, too."

"Does he realize she may have done that specifically to make an impression?"

"He's no fool; of course he realizes that. He knows she is operating from a detailed and inflexible agenda. But she doesn't seem to try to hide that from him any more than she tries to hide it from us."

"She's up front about it when she wants to use you, I'll give her that," Harry snorted. "Never let it be said Mai mushmouths around the point."

"Mai is going to have to deal with us; she cannot force us to anything, and blackmailing us would not get her what she wants from us, either. She will deal, and while she deals coldly, she can be trusted once a deal is struck. She's as much a stickler for precise following of rules and details as Morgan."

"If you say so, baby," Harry sighed, and hid his face in Bob's beautiful, thick, silvery hair. "I wish Eryl could dream with us."

"Perhaps, if he feels comfortable helping me arrange it…but I must say it would likely only--at least at first--play up a difference between us that he has, as yet, no idea how to deal with. He's a human consciousness, a human soul, if you will, housed in the brain and body of a Drake, and not comfortable yet with the changes his physical person is making in his human consciousness. He had barely had time to get used to his own existence when the human body he was born into was switched for a Drake's. He'll surely need time to settle into his new patterns and modes of operation before we start trying to actually subvert his brain's defenses. We needn't flaunt the dreaming in his face, you know."

"I know. I wouldn't have. I just…I think he'd be…happy, I think he'd really enjoy…being himself, whatever that is, with no restraints and considerations, worrying about the Drake thing. It's the freedom of it I wish we could share with him, I suppose."

"Perhaps someday we can. In the meantime, we will give him all the support he can stand to accept from us. Possibly more on occasion."

Harry chuckled. "Yeah, okay, I'm overprotective. He's so young, though he feels so old, so much of the time. I don't want anyone--read 'Mai'--taking advantage."

"If Eryl keeps on treating with Mai in the same spirit as he has so far, I think Mai will soon be sufficiently fond of him herself that her agenda, while possibly still her most important motivation, will not be the sole determinant of her actions."

"Mai has a heart, and Eryl can reach it, is that what you're saying?"

"Megare loved Mai, my darling. Mai must have a heart. Buried, silenced, anesthetized; but alive, and possibly rousable."

"I would really like to see Eryl accomplish that. Ancient Mai, human after all."

"Oh, she is human. She is simply a very old, overly responsible, and bitterly disappointed human. Why, I'm not sure, but I'd bet Megare is involved in the reason."

Harry was quiet for a bit, then said "All right, enough dealing with reality. I want to do something fun."

"And what is your pleasure this evening, beloved?"

"I'd like to take that little float trip. It sounds relaxing. Will you tell me the stories behind the stars we see?"

"They'll be your stars, love. But I'd be glad to speculate with you. It's sure to be fascinating."

* * *

"But aren't we just as good a family? Why can't you stay with us?"

Cruachan had settled sort of around him; when Eryl tried to see anything, the places he focused his eyes on showed him nothing of imp; only if he looked a little away could he spot dark furry shifting. He could feel the almost-furriness.

"I believe I would cause more problems than I could solve, Wizard Eryl. For one thing, I am not normally so vocal; my usual methods are far more hobgoblinesque in nature. This has been…different, and special. I have been a colleague, rather than a caretaker. It is not, despite my unusual characteristics in the world of hobgoblins, what I am designed for. I need a family who needs me; it would be welcome if they were practitioners of the old arts, but in the absence of that, I am better suited to a large family who needs a bit more than the usual house guardian spirit provides. And…" his booming lowered and softened in tone. "I would like to go home, Wizard Eryl. It has been centuries; my home as I knew it is gone--but I am still tied to the land, to the people of that land. I truly believe I would lose strength and waste away, in time, if I could not ever go home."

"I know," Eryl sighed. "I'm selfish, I suppose. You're family, to me. You were there when I opened my eyes for the first time. You've been with me, helping me learn, helping me sort out what I already know…you've watched my back in battle, and you were instrumental in my creation. I will be leaving Megare, and though I'll see her again, it's not so certain with you."

"I like to think it is inevitable that we will meet again, Eryl," Cruachan said. "Or I would be less than enthusiastic about our separation, too."

"I don't really see how." Eryl slid off the couch onto a floor cushion, wrapping his arms around his knees. "If you become some other family's hobgoblin, you'll become a more typical hearth imp, and…it would disturb you, your new life and family and routine, to have us coming to your home and requesting of your family to visit with their hearth-imp. I mean, that's rather like going to someone's house and telling them you have an old friendship with their cat that you'd like to strike back up."

"I know the difficulties it presents, and I am sorry. Do not think I will not miss you, as well. And to see you again will be more complicated than the scenario you just described, of course. But I believe it will happen. I will come to you, if I must, with the consent of my family."

"We don't know that your family would consent. We don't know anything yet about what your circumstances will be, and we won't know until Megare sends us word, well after we've gone back to Chicago. I will miss Megare terribly, but she's not out of reach. You largely will be. It would take a great deal of work and luck both for us to meet again once you're settled in Ireland."

"It would," Cruachan said softly. "I can only say that I would find the work, and the courting of the appropriate sorts of luck, a worthwhile expenditure of time and energy."

Eryl smiled a little. "So, I shouldn't think of it as goodbye, is that what you're saying?"

"Not exactly. Your life will continue without me as any sort of relevant factor; I would be only the occasional pleasant surprise. Yes, we'd be out of each other's daily lives, probably permanently. But…I myself find it comforting, nonetheless, that I will see you all again, even if not on any sort of regular basis."

"I should find it comforting too, Cru. I'm…a bit selfish. I…"

"You want your friends and family around you, while you learn to cope with the fact that for all your memories and knowledge, you have only a few months of actual life, of your own existence, your own memories…and then you woke in the body of a Drake. That is disquieting."

"You are a master of understatement."

"In any case, you are not selfish. Your desires are normal. I must go home. So must you. But you are a powerful wizard…and I am not without powers of my own. I will have responsibilities, certainly; but I also have ways to fulfill duty and follow the direction of my sympathies as well. And Megare's friendship will be, of course, quite valuable in arranging a workable situation."

"I suppose so." Eryl took a shuddering breath. "I wish…well, forget what I wish, what I wish is irrelevant if it can't be."

"Please try to think ahead," Cruachan said, and his boom was deep and soft, rumbling the cushion they sat on. "Think of the life you have coming. You have many opportunities waiting. That life can be anything you want it to be. And you are a Wizard of surpassing skill. We will communicate, even if we do not meet in person often."

"Yes, you're right, I'm…I need to be thinking about that. With Mai and…and everything that's going to happen now…even with Mai's, as it were, patronage, there are still many powerful councilmembers who will definitely get their shorts in a twist over Bob. And while our cover story of my being a young cousin of Harry's will fool normals, my true origins, and my state of being in the world now, is going to cause at least as much uproar as Bob's return to full magical functionality. There'll be a great deal to handle, you're right, I should be thinking about that…" he shook his head, and laughed softly, mirthlessly. "But what seems important right now is that when we leave tomorrow, it's possible I'll never see you again, even if we manage to communicate."

"That will not be so. I can come to you, if I must. I will not settle with a family who is not aware of my…overqualified status for hearth-imp standards these days. If they can handle that, they can handle my having old friends who wish to see me occasionally. Megare can help, if all else fails."

"Yes, there's nothing she can't do, especially when it comes to people. All sorts of people."

"I honestly think you should try to rest. Wizards Dresden and Bainbridge are sleeping…"

"They're dreaming," Eryl said, and laughed shortly. "I noticed Bob was missing from their bed--rather, his projection was gone. That means he's in Harry's mind, dreaming with him. I can't do that, you know. My Drake brain."

"I would not count out the genius of the wizard of Bainbridge. It should not have been possible to save your patterns by tracing the 'myelin ghosts' supposedly left by repeated firing of dedicated synapses. It should not have been possible to write those patterns into the brain of a Drake. But he did it. Even your Drake brain may be no match for a wizard with an almost unprecedented gift, and six hundred years worth of knowledge to direct it with."

"Yes, that's…a nice thought."

"I think you should sleep, Wizard Eryl."

"Yes, Wizard Eryl," said a different voice, and he raised his head. Megare was standing in the doorway, looking sleepy, in a nightgown. "Come, we sleep. You do not sleep, I give you nasty potion."

He smiled a bit. "I appreciate your concern. How about a bit of your relaxation tea?"

"That is good idea. Come."

"I shall be watching over the house," Cruachan said as Eryl rose.

"Good," Eryl sighed. "It will be…comforting to think of you doing so."

Megare took his hand and led him into the kitchen, fetching a glass of juice-tea-honey. She got one for herself too, and brought them to the smaller kitchen table, setting them down there and taking the chair next to his.

"You do not wish to talk," she said softly.

"Not right now, no. I…at least, the place I'm going…I know it as well as Harry does, as Bob does, though most of Bob's memories are a bit different. In a way, it's home. A large part of me will see it as home. I just wanted…something stupid. I wanted the chance to…grow up, some at least, here, where I was born, where…where you and Cru and my…I don't know what to call them. My progenitors are here too, for the moment. I wish I could stay longer, but circumstances dictate otherwise."

Megare nodded slowly, gazing at him, listening.

"You will…remain in touch, won't you? I'll be able to visit you?"

"Band on your wrist is yours, always. I never assign a summons from it any less importance than now."

"You'd really…drop everything and…"

"I drop everything only if you tell me you are in trouble and need help. If you just want to see me, I come when I have straighened up, if you see."

He smiled. "Yes. I see." He had another slug of his drink. "If we weren't leaving tomorrow I think I'd be breaking into the ouzo. But according to my Drake primer, alcohol doesn't make us drunk, merely excited. I don't need to become unmanageably Drakish all over the place at a time like this."

"You will sleep well enough. I will see to that."

"I'm sure you will. Thank you."

"Come, if you are finished; we will pee and go to bed."

"Yes, that tea does dehydrate one a bit." He sighed, yawned, and let Megare's hand guide him out of the chair and toward her rooms.


	27. Chapter 27

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the characters and I don't own this story.

**_LOUD AND CLEAR! I DO NOT, HAVE NOT AND WILL NOT EVER OWN THIS STORY!_**

**This story is the property of Tang Guangzhen who was kind enough to give me permission to post this here. Any flames about that will be used to fry your ass.**

**Thank You**

* * *

Harry and Bob stumbled on emerging from the portal's shimmering curtain.

"I forgot to warn you," Eryl said. "There was a step down the last time I did this, too."

"No harm done," Bob said, regaining his balance. "Now, where are we…"

"Um…" Eryl scrubbed at his tearing eyes and then pointed, blinking feircely. "That way."

Harry followed the line of his pointing arm. "How do you…this doesn't look particularly familiar…"

"Eryl has all the memories of the area that you have, Harry; they just make more sense to him because he has a better sense of direction. Follow him and we'll come to things we can use as directional signposts shortly, I'm sure."

"Yeah. Lead on," Harry said, shrugging and smiling at Eryl. They were all dealing with the upset of bidding Megare and Cruachan goodbye--at least for the time--and just tromping on through the sadness to what needed to get done. Bob was the only one who appeared fairly equanimitous, and both of the others knew that it was only an appearance.

"It's not far," Eryl said, mostly for something to say. He hoisted his pack and led the way; the other two settled their own loads and followed.

It wasn't long before they began to recognize Harry's close neighborhood. "I'm glad you already know what to expect," Harry half-joked. "I wouldn't like to have to apologize to someone again, for the place I'm bringing you to."

"Don't worry about it, Harry," Eryl said offhandedly, checked for traffic, and stepped out to cross the last street before Harry's block. "I'm quite used to it."

Harry did some quiet, almost invisible work on the wards--it didn't take much; his wards had been trounced and then reactivated during his absence--to allow Eryl's passage, and they went inside.

"Well, this will take some work," Bob observed, looking around at the unused state of things. "I never cared much before, being noncorporeal, but…"

"But now you're going to be a neat freak," Harry sighed. "I was afraid of that."

"Not only that, my dear progenitor," Eryl said, dumping his pack on the floor and wandering toward the kitchen, gazing around speculatively, hands on his hips. "I think we can do something about your inability to take advantage of many of the modern conveniences available to normals."

"As for me, my first project is that dungeon of a lab," Bob put in, having dropped his pack too; he was now wandering around the place, touching things, smelling them, as though he'd never been here before--he might have Harry's memories, but that wasn't the same as having his own.

Harry groaned but said nothing, sinking down on a sofa.

Actually, having Bob do his worst in the lab would probably only improve his situation--Bob would never forget Harry's most serious peeves and preferences, and he wouldn't interfere with them. After all, it wasn't Bob's lab, and as a matter of professional courtesy Bob would never make such changes without permission, no matter how badly he thought they needed to be made. Bob would have a lab of his own. He had a frisson at the thought of Bob leaving--even if it was only a few streets up to a different abode--then realized that above his floor, there were unused and probably currently unusable floors. He hadn't needed any more space until now, but there was no reason they couldn't make the upstairs sound and livable.

It might at least do to keep Bob content for a while. He'd be doing a lot of practice and perimeter- setting for himself, at first. They all probably would.

"Bob, what do you think of clearing out the upstairs? We could get you a lab up there, and, um, living space and stuff if you wanted…"

"I think we're going to have to render more of this building habitable--your apartment is fine for one wizard with very low requirements for his comfort, and a ghost who had none. Now you have three grown men trying to fit in the same space. I don't see us tolerating it for long." He smiled.

"Yeah, more space," Harry nodded fast.

"But we needn't get started on that right away. Tomorrow's soon enough. We'll find somewhere to put us all for today and tonight."

Suddenly there were clumping noises from overhead.

Harry cracked up. "Eryl's not waiting."

Bob chuckled too. "He's young. Patience is not his strong suit. Well, we should put away the foodstuffs Megare and Cruachan sent with us. It's true we can expect visits from…those who'd notice we're back. They won't be interested in giving us a chance to settle in. And as much a four-alarm situation as they may consider Eryl, I will probably be the focus of their attentions."

"And only Mai will know that you're bound to me, that anything happening to me will not do you much good, either."

"Correct." Bob started putting things away in the fridge. "At least, we hope so."

"I'll get hold of the landlady. It's going to do things to the rent."

"Nothing we won't be able to handle, of course," Bob said offhandedly. "We could give her a lump sum for the year, if she seems upset about the sudden arrival of your business associate and your young cousin."

"I think she'll settle for increasing the rent. I can get a big discount if we do the clean-up work up there ourselves."

"I think Eryl's already doing it. He should be finished in half an hour or so."

"So we wait for all the people who don't like me, or you, and are all set not to like Eryl, to come and give us a hard time?"

"That'd be best. Mai, of course, will not condone any negative action on their parts, so all they'll be able to do is complain."

"And tell me on no uncertain terms that they're watching me. Oh, hey, first ones are here." Outside the back door, Mai was tapping. Unusual; Mai hardly ever knocked. Lurking behind her was a huge dark shadow.

"Kind of nice to see them first. Come on in if your intentions are peaceful," he called. But that was Mai. No mistaking her.

She and Morgan came in. "Dresden, Bainbridge," she said. "Where's Eryl?"

A thump sounded from overhead.

"Getting us some more space. Pardon the edges of his spellworking up there," Harry said, digging out a few more things Megare had sent with them, prepatory to putting them away in the lab. "If you feel them, that is. He's pretty focused, not much wasted energy."

"I'll go up and help," Mai said, in her usual phlegmatic tones, and turned toward the door that led to the stairs. Morgan put a hand on her arm; she touched it briefly, and it fell away. She proceeded through the door and up.

Harry stared. "Mai is helping clean up anything?"

Morgan got a constipated expression. "The Ancient does as she feels necessary. I am here to talk to you, Bainbridge--before the Ancient does."

Bob perched on the edge of the kitchen table. "I assume it's to warn me not to take anything she says to me, any deals she cuts with me, any…vulnerabilites she might share with me--as an opportunity, or you will make certain that no matter what I am now, exactly, I will suffer a radical change in the state of my existence."

"You may be the Ancient's equal in some ways, but in numerous others, you'll never hope to compete with her. Or with me, when it comes to enforcing the laws. She has her reasons for what she's doing. I don't have to like it; it isn't my job to like it. It's my job to maintain order, and to defend the Ancient. You, Dresden, and your…offspring, of sorts, are useful to her, and since it's your good will she wants--and not your enforced obedience--you may get the impression she is…soft on you. But it is a matter of practicality. Don't ever think otherwise, and don't ever try to take advantage of it. Or my role will come into play."

"I consider myself enlightened," Bob said. "Harry, my darling. You?"

"Oh, I know. I believe you, Morgan." Harry popped a couple of breaded shrimp into his mouth, out of the food Megare had sent with them, figuring rightly that there was nothing worth discussing in Harry's fridge. Actually, they did, in fact, believe Morgan, but no point kissing his ass about it.

There was a a floompf of minor power upstairs, shimmering the air around them and causing dust and plaster to mist around.

"I think by the time they're done the landlady won't have any cause to complain." Harry was holding a dish containing thinly breaded vegetables and meat morsels. He held the dish out to Morgan.

Morgan eyeballed him a second, and then took an item from the dish. He popped it into his mouth and chewed, still gazing upward.

"They may be a while," Harry said. "It's a pretty big mess up there. I wish…uh. We've got a friend who could have made it livable in a heartbeat. Too bad he's not with us."

"Indeed," Bob said, still watching Morgan closely, with a not-quite-controlled smile on his face.

The building creaked alarmingly, but none of them did anything but look around at the walls and ceiling; that would be Eryl and Mai reinforcing the structure of the place.

"Eryl seemed to feel he could make it possible for me to have things like toasters that don't explode," Harry said idly, having a seat on the couch. "I'll be interested to see how he does it."

"Well," Mai said, "not bad."

They glanced around at the living room of the floor above Harry's; like his, it had originally been converted into a single apartment, but only the ground floor had been kept up. The place was now spotless, all the structural points and woodworking inside the apartment had been fixed, the grates were clean and functional, and the fireplace was now servicable. The gas heat worked, too.

"Not for forty minutes worth of work," Eryl said.

"Who'll be staying up here? You?"

"I'd rather thought, that since I'll be moving out before too long, it might be better to situate Bob up here. He'll love that great empty windowed room at the end of the hall, it'd make a lovely lab."

"He'll have to do something about the windows."

"Yes, well. This is Bob. I'm sure he can keep them without their presenting any kind of danger, whether in terms of visibility or breakage. He'll disguise it, rather like Harry did with the hidden room he turned into a lab."

Mai shrugged. "It's clean, at least, and functional, but…I think I can make it a bit more comfortable."

Eryl blinked at her, then smiled and nodded. "As you think best, of course."

Mai wandered around the apartment--which was empty and spotless, not even a speck of dust in the way now, much less the ripped-out walls, trash, and skittering creatures they'd had to contend with earlier. The glass in all the windows shone like crystal. The woodwork was pristine, as though it'd just been varnished. Eryl had thought that would be quite good enough.

When Mai came strolling back up the hallway to the room he was waiting in, he was looking at expensive rugs on the wood floor, sleek, stylish mahogany and oak furniture, and hearing the ca-chunk of the pipes as they commenced carrying water again. Around the upper walls were worked wooden decorations, mostly of vines and leaves, with the occasional flower or Celtic-looking knotwork animals and faces. The walls and ceiling were bright with fresh stucco.

"The hot water tank was broken," Mai said, "had to fix it, so sorry about the noise. So, what do you think?"

"I think…I think that none of this is conjured, Mai. These are real…things, real items. How do you…sorry. You're entitled to your secrets."

"It's not an operation you could have done anyway." She glanced around. "I left room for Bainbridge's personality, assuming he has one, which I've yet to see any evidence of. But this should do as basics. Small items--kitchenware and such--I'll leave to him to choose. And if there's anything he doesn't like, he can always change it with a minumum of effort." She turned to him with an air of having completed a task. "So. Does it meet with your approval?"

"It's lovely, Mai. If I weren't the one moving out, I'd co-opt it."

She smirked. "There are other floors. We reinforced the entire structure. But I get the feeling you'd like a bit more space."

"You may have been speaking from selfish motives when you said Bob would protect me into a box and Harry would nail it shut, but you're not wrong. I'd planned on looking for studio space with adjoinding living quarters."

"I can help you with that."

"So long as you don't oust anyone from their rightful place of residence, I would be grateful for your help, Mai."

He realized he'd addressed her in a rather familiar fashion only after he'd said it, but she only nodded and glanced around the room one more time. "Well. Bainbridge will have a list of complaints, so perhaps we should give him the opportunity to get started."

They went to the stairs and down; one of the things Bob would want would be his own entrance, Eryl thought, as they emerged into Harry's abode.

"We're done," he said brightly. "Bob, would you care to take a look?"

Bob blinked in a "me?" fashion, and Eryl said "I'm going to be moving out soon. We thought we'd keep you in mind in cleaning and fixing up the next floor."

Bob thought a moment, head tilted, then nodded abruptly and stood. "I'll be happy to, my dear boy."

Everyone went upstairs, and Harry said "Holy shit. You guys were gone for like what? Half an hour, an hour or so?"

"Eryl did the greater part of the stripping away of refuse, dust, eroded woodwork, and other assorted crap," Mai said. "We worked together on the structural reinforcing, and the furnishings were my idea."

"And no, they're not conjured," Eryl said. "I was gobsmacked myself."

Bob was wandering through the place, while Harry stared and contemplated just how and what they'd done to accomplish this; Bob finally came back, his expression calm as usual. "It's quite livable," he said. "Thank you, Eryl, Ancient. This will save us a great deal of trouble."

Mai only nodded her acknowledgement; Eryl said "Oh, I'd've done the same no matter who was going to get the new apartment." He grinned.

On Harry's floor, everyone but Morgan was drinking Megare's tea/juice potion, some of which she'd included in their baggage. Morgan remained outside of things, seeming more comfortable with his role as Mai's bodyguard than with interacting as himself, which was hardly to wonder at, considering who he'd be interacting with.

"Yes," Mai said, answering a question Eryl had asked. "I will be asking you to provide services for me that you're in a unique position to provide--Bainbridge and Eryl both, for different reasons. The services will be compensated, of course."

"I had a look at the bank books for the accounts you started for me," Eryl said, and cleared his throat in a bit of discomfort. "I may be in debt to you for service for quite a while."

Harry and Bob both gave him worried looks, but Mai only said "I told you that was for the service you provided me already. If you're worried, the money did not come from a source that will miss it. Not to mention the fact that when you've been around as long as I have, you have quite a nest egg of your own." She smirked. "If it weren't so well hidden, I would be listed among the ten personally richest people in the United States."

"Oh. So, then…I shouldn't become…flustered at the sums that I encounter with respect to you," Eryl essayed.

"That's right. Don't worry about it. I'll let you know, if there's anything you need to worry about. This tea is very pleasant. Mild relaxation effect without affecting one's state of alertness."

"It's also good for headache, and belly cramps," Eryl volunteered.

Mai smiled, staring into her cup, and for a minute she didn't look like Mai at all.

But it was only for a minute.

She looked back up. "In any case, I'll see that you have time to settle in without being harassed. Dresden, if you want to continue taking clients, you'll have to show a great deal of discretion with them."

"I always have. Not always intelligence per se, but discrection with clients--I've got that down."

Bob gave a small snort, just after swallowing his sip of tea.

"I can't say yet exactly how I plan to approach the two of you as resources. Bainbridge, I have definite ideas, but Eryl--" she eyed him narrowly. "I don't know how things will progress there. But your goodwill is important to our agenda, just as Bainbridge's is."

"What am I, chopped liver?" Harry mumbled into his cup.

Mai focused her attention on him. When she either did that, or removed said attention, it was heavily palpable. He stopped sipping and looked up.

"As I have said before, you have untapped resources. Eryl, when he was a combination of Bainbridge and you, tapped them fine. I doubt, that having happened, that you will be able to bury them forever. And you are important for reasons we both know."

Right, Bob's anchor to this life. Apparently, even Morgan didn't know about that.

"I have even more reason to watch you now, Dresden. Don't screw up."

"Ancient, this is me."

"All right then, don't screw up to the point Bainbridge and Eryl can't rescue your half-cocked ass. We need you." She warded off a sharp glance from Morgan at this point, and said "We need him," sotto voce, before returning to the conversation with Harry. "Apparently what makes you such a big pain in the ass also makes you valuable. But someday, you're going to burst your floodgates. Listen; I have reason to believe that power, even at that level, does not corrupt--it takes more power than you could ever muster. You are overly fearful of your uncle's transgressions. Power is power. It is neither black nor white. Our definitions of same are arbitrary, suiting our culture. You could use your uncle's power--sorry, it'd be your own power--for purposes other than he did. You have a very experienced guide to warn you when your thinking is devolving into rationalizing." She glanced at Bob, who glanced expressionlessly back.

"There's more to it than that, Ancient."

"Of course. But you're not your uncle. And unlike with him, your magical partner is not bound to obey you. If nothing else, Hrothbert of Bainbridge could probably put the kibosh on anyone's ill-considered trains of thought and subsequent spells. Deny that, if you can."

"Don't forget me," Eryl muttered.

Mai's mouth turned up at the quarners. "I'm not. But Harry has."

Harry very nearly stomped out of the room, but took a deep breath and said "Yeah, okay. I'll…work on it."

"You don't need to do it alone. You have plenty of qualified help." Mai sipped her tea again and thought. "I'll do as much spin doctoring as possible with the Wizarding world at large. And Eryl's being a drake should probaby stay a secret as long as we can manage it, but with the sensitivies at large in our community, that won't last long. A month or two at the outside, before rumour becomes fact. That the ghost is no longer a ghost is all they need to know; no specific details need be divulged."

"I appreciate that, ancient." Bob spoke quietly, but it was obvious he was sincere. Making a target out of Harry would be the last thing he could stand.  
"I have business this eveing--rather, Morgan and I do," Mai said. She set her cup down and rose. "I'll be checking in again soon."

"I'm sure," Bob said.

She and Morgan started for the door, and Morgan, helping her into her jacket, paused to give them an utter death glare.

"It's okay, Morgan. We know where you stand," was the general attitude the three of them projected, with either amusement, blankness or disinterest, depending on who was doing the look.

"I've had it cleaned up," Mai said, "it was a dance studio."

Eryl gazed around at the shiningly polished floor that showed nary a rise or dip; at the floor-to-ceiling mirrors that lined two walls of the room, one lengthwise and one along the slightly shorter wall opposite the door; and the raised platform that ran halfway down one side of the length of the room, in the middle rather than at either end, with an unbroken mirror on the front of it that kept the visual line from the wall mirrors from breaking. It was lit, rather than by flourescent tubes, by what appeared to be incandescent lights hidden behind translucent white panels in the ceiling.

He paused and took his boots off, dropping them on the carpet in the entry that led to the dressing rooms, and stepped forward, looking around. "Where did you find this?"

"I have connections," Mai said shortly, and added nothing else.

"It's perfect."

"I hoped you'd approve."

She let him walk up and down the place, taking it in, then said, as he came back within range of the entry, "Let's see the rest."

"By all means."

The carpeted entry led into the dressing area; both it and the showers were divided only by banks of lockers, creating a sort of two-sided effect, but there was nothing like separate men's and women's facilities. "Um, I'll be needing separate rooms for men and women," he said at one point, somewhat trepidatiously, and she shook her head.

"Not for a martial arts studio. Actually, shower and changing facilities aren't required at all for a martial arts studio, by Cook county law. That being the case, I suspect one side will become the women's side, and vice versa, even if there are no rules or walls to enforce it. Professional dancers usually aren't terribly worried about things like that; show people are so concentrated on getting changed in time that no one pays much attention to anyone else."

The showers were small cubicles, a row of a dozen on each side, with curtain rods in place, though lacking curtains at the moment. There was a sink with large mirror between each, and a row of mirrored sinks between the shower stalls and out near the entrance of the locker/shower room.

"The office is this way," Mai said, also taking off her shoes before she returned to the main floor and proceeded to a door half-hidden by its position against the wall the shower room was on, leading to a set of stairs. They went up; there was one large room, with windows on two sides. The carpet was a thick blue-grey swirl mix, and seemed freshly installed, just as the whole place looked new or in recent repair.

"The living quarters are this way," she said, moving along to a door in the wall on the left side of the entrance, the side without windows. She flipped keys on her ring and opened the door.

He came in after her slowly, gazing around. The place was done in a modern minimalist style, with any exposed pipes painted bright colors, and the rest of the walls in a bright azure. It was furnished--he could feel that most of the furnishings were conjured, but no matter now--in a single-floor loft style, with a lovely painted screen setting off the bedroom area, and numerous floor lamps that would, he knew, make the place much more homey after dark fell than track lighting would. There was a conversation pit around a brass-accented fireplace, and a bronze grid before it. The hearth was raised, made of grey mortarted stones. The kitchen, while not stocked, contained all the modern conveniences, including a built-in microwave and refrigerator.

"I apologize that much of this is conjured," Mai said matter-of-factly. "I have the resources, of course, but lacked the time to furnish the apartment. My ability to transport real items must not be used for theft or any other misuse."

"Perfectly understandable. I can use the conjured items long enough for the real ones to be obtained." He turned to her. "And not far from Harry's flat. I'm surprised."

She smirked a little. "You should be, really; this is far too classy for this part of town. It was a dance studio; I bought the building and…made a few changes."

"Well. As close as it is to Harry and Bob, I don't think I need to look further. The matter of rent must be discussed, however."

"No, it mustn't. As I say, I own the building. For a small amount--a pittance, actually, and only because it's required by law so the state can get their tax from the sale--I will sell it to you. You may wish to wait until the real furnishings have arrived, however, so you can help plan the décor."

He shook his head. "Mai, I don't know what you expect from me, but--"

"It has been a very long time since anyone did anything for me--let alone anything so heartbreakingly important to them--for friendship. There is not enough money to repay that. I have a possibly overfanciful hope that our relationship might continue on that basis. Consider this a gift from a friend, one you have helped--and will continue to help--in times of great need."

He considered her a moment, then nodded. "Of course, if you were out of coffee, I could help you with that, too."

She smiled, and Eryl was beginning to realize that almost nobody got to see that expression on her. "If that should become a problem, I'll certainly contact you. Now, you'll have details to take care of--I assume, in the papers you found in Harry's desk, you discovered your birth certificate?"

"Yes. And the rest--I'm a citzen of the states, naturalized when was eighteen, having lived with my cousin Harry for a year after my only living relatives in Sussex died. I'm related to him through the Morningway blood; he's my first cousin, but the son of the oldest sister, whereas I'm the get of the youngest, and that late in her life."

"Very good. Make up details as you feel appropriate. Camilla Morningway's paperwork has been altered to include your presence as her son, though it's a very long shot that anyone will go as far as Sussex to verify anything. She did, incidentally, have a son named Harold."

"That's convenient. Many might think Eryl is a diminutive."

"And a namesake of Dreden's. That was our thinking. The son is still alive, but living in Singapore."

"Gracious."

"There are also passports, work visas, and citizenship papers, if you hadn't been all the way through the pack. You don't have a driver's licence; we thought that'd be easy enough to get on your own."

"Not in Harry's car."

"A car can be provided."

Eryl was silent for a few minutes, and then said "Is this what they call kissing up?"

Mai thought, then nodded vigorously. "Yes. Definitely kissing up. I'd enjoy it if I were you."

"Oh, I am so far." Eryl grinned.

Harry stared around him. "She bought you this."

"And more," Eryl said easily, leaning against the doorframe, arms folded. As Bob had said, Eryl's easy grace and immaculate personal presentation, as well as his lack of weathering and differing coloring, would never let him be confused with Harry, though their being relatives wasn't hard to buy.

"Don't you know she just wants to get on your good side?" Harry demanded, whirling on him.

"I'm well aware of that. She told me so herself. I like that about her." Eryl smiled a little. "Though I will speak to her about being a bit more respectful toward you. Your parentage is no reason to treat you the way she does. After all, I come from you, as well as Bob."

"You're a Drake," Harry snorted. "So to her, it doesn't count with you."

"Yes, I am. And I plan to charge all the special privileges the traffic will bear, especially since she told me she has it to spare, and then some. Of course, she was heavyhanded with my accounts, as well. You'll never have to worry about the rent again, look at it that way."

Harry made a bearlike sound and tromped though the rest of the studio without benefit of guidance, including up the stairs to the living quarters.

When he came back down, he was much quieter. "Are you moving out, then?"

"I've barely had a chance to move in. And no, I'm not moving out yet. I need you, Harry. And Bob. I need an anchor as to who I am. If you two aren't that, then no one is. I worry…"

"I know. We…" he moved forward and dropped his pissed demeanor to hug Eryl. "I said we won't abandon you. You saved our lives."

"And you saved mine, which some people would consider quits."

"Maybe some people who don't love the people they'd be considering it quits with. I know my apartment's crap next to your own place--she said she was selling it to you?"

Eryl nodded.

"Everybody leaves home sometime, but not…not yet, all right? Not just for you. Bob and I need you around a while longer, too."

"I won't be going yet; don't worry." Eryl kissed him softly. "I need you, too. Emphatically. Never doubt it. And it's not as though I'm far. You could walk it in ten minutes."

"No, it's not far. Sorry, I'm getting all parent-complex on you again. Bob would probably be checking the soundness of the building structure."

"He does things like that to hide when he gets weepy." Eryl smiled against Harry's cheek. "But Mai and I were careful about that."

"'Mai and I', Harry repeated on a sigh, leaning back to rest his forehead on Eryl's. "I'll just have to get used to hearing that."

"I'll try not to flaunt it about."

"Oh, I'm sure Mai will do that for you. Come on, let's see what Bob's done with the place."

The apartment was clean within an inch of its life, and the wards had been changed to allow Eryl's free passage, though alarms would activate if any other Drake tried to shapeshift into his form and gain entrance that way. The wards were really no better off than they were when Harry and Bob had made their trip to Greece, but with a friendly Drake in residence, or at least near enough to sense any others, that mattered less, though Mai would probably fix that up for them too if they asked her.

"Bob?" Eryl called.

He received the sense that Bob was in the laboratory, and looked around to where Harry, with an attitude of wonder and delight, was once again going over all the modern conveniences in the kitchen.

"Harry, if you make any more toast just to watch it pop up, I'll have to run to the store for bread."

Harry didn't answer, just grinned at him and started to fill a coffeemaker that had more functional appurtanences than the latest space shuttle.

Eryl sighed and made his way through the living area, past a brightly crackling fire, toward the hallway and the lab.

Inside was what looked, at first glance, like a disaster, but what he knew was simply Bob's way of organizing things until he could get them all put away the way he preferred.

"Is Harry going to kill you for this?" he wondered idly.

"Not at all, dear boy," Bob said, from somewhere under one of the tables. "I think even Harry can manage to follow the alphabet. I would have preferred a system that grouped likes together, but Harry generally doesn't need even that--this much organization is really only for you and I. Harry seems to know what he needs without even looking for it."

"I'd say you have plenty of time to finish. Harry's playing with all the new toys in the kitchen. He's making coffee, but I saw him eyeing the corn popper."

"How did you manage that, by the way?"

"The spell in question is on Harry. Any device that carries no magical charge of its own, such as his sheild bracelets do, will be sheilded from Harry's aura."

"Oh, dear. That could cause him severe difficulties in the field."

"The spell only operates in his own house. Specifically, in the kitchen. His reading lamps and TV sets continue to live lives of danger."

Bob crawled out from under the table, where there was a squat storage cabinet with twelve small drawers in four ranks; he was storing the less-used herbs, stones, and other such items in it, and labeling them. He'd discovered his own sense of smell was suffering from the industrial surroundings, much as Harry's did, and couldn't be relied on to identify shredded or powdered herbs or ground resins. He sneezed once, steadying himself on Eryl's arm, and said "That's very fine control, and a great deal of casual power, considering the devices you intended to effect are electrical."

Eryl gave a nothing-to-it shrug. It wasn't like he was being falsely modest. There really was nothing to it, to him. He looked around and located a fairly clean cloth, probably intended for use as a rag but not yet sacrificed to the cause, to hand to Bob to wipe up with.

Bob did, and blew his nose. "And will I be seeing your studio soon?"

"As soon as you like. Will I be meeting Murphy soon? I feel like she's my best friend outside of you two, and I've never even said hello to her."

"Harry will arrange that, or perhaps Murphy herself; she tends to drop by unannounced." Eryl smiled happily at him, he couldn't really have said why, except that Bob was all dusty, determined, and excited. With the godawful memories Eryl could look at if he so chose--which he seldom did--it seemed too good to be true to see the dead-but-not-ghostly wizard like this.

"Oh, my dear boy." Bob dropped the rag and reached for Eryl, pulling him into a soft kiss. When they broke, he continued "It is not only Mai to whom you are an unexpected windfall."

Eryl smiled, eyes closed, nuzzling Bob's cheek. "I love you, too. And I wouldn't be here if it weren't for you--the incredible Hrothbert of Bainbridge, doing the impossible."

"And I wouldn't be here, if you hadn't made saving Harry and I your first priority. Help me get this…" he began to bat the dust off himself. He was wearing a loose white button-down and a pair of relaxed fit khakis--his idea of bottom-of-the-barrel scut clothes. Harry would have been shirtless in a pair of translucent cutoffs.

Eryl helped brush him off--with only one comment from Bob that his ass couldn't be that dusty--and they adjourned to the kitchen, where Bob went to wash his hands before touching anyone, Eryl and Harry kissed up against the refrigerator, and both of them snagged Bob, while he was still drying his hands, to pull him into the clinch.

As Harry kissed Bob, and Eryl chewed lightly on Bob's ear and started on his shirt buttons, all the wards in the house, as well as Harry's hockey stick, began to glow a soft, even gold, showing no outside disturbances, mundane, magical, or otherwise.

Bob started working his way down Harry's neck as Eryl tugged Bob's shirt free of his pants, and Harry panted "I gotta get some less noisy warding up."

"Later," Eryl panted back, sliding his hands up Bob's chest as he sucked at a particular spot on Bob's neck that produced a heartfelt groan from the older wizard.

The wards were, in fact, adjusted later. A couple of days later.


End file.
